#*  ''*'. 


f\ 


^  \ 


J  ERUSALEM 


THE    CHURCH    OF    THE    HOLY    SEPULCHRE 


JERUSALEM 


ITS    HISTORY   AND    HOPE 


BY 


MRS.    OLIPHANT 

AUTHOR    OF    'makers   OF    FLORENCE,"    'MAKERS   OF   VENICE,'    ETC. 


'  Mount  Zion  which  cannot  be  reiHoreii,  but  abiileth  for  et<er  ' 


WITH    WOOD    ENGRAVINGS    FROM    DRAWINGS    IIV    HAMILTON    AIDE 
AND   PHOTOGRAPHS   BY    V.    M.    GOOD 


ILoution 
MACMILLAN    AND    CO. 

AND    NEW   YORK 
1891 


Ail  rights  reserved 


3 


0^ 


UEr.Ar.iA!:'5  riii:o 


NOTE 

The  writer  scarcely  needs  to  say  that  this  book  is  no 
record  of  Eastern  travel :  her  experiences  in  the  Holy 
Land  having  no  special  importance,  save  as  making 
more  vivid  to  herself  the  scenes  to  which  the  following 
history  is  devoted.  It  may  be  well,  however,  to  say 
that  these  holy  places  may  be  visited  with  no  exertion 
that  is  beyond  the  powers  of  a  person  in  ordi- 
nary health,  though  neither  young  nor  adventurous. 
Nothing  can  exceed  the  care  and  kindness  of  the 
attendants  who  escort  the  not-robust  traveller  through 
a  region  where  convenience  and  comfort  are  by  no 
means  the  rule  of  life.  And  she  has  a  special 
remembrance  to  make  of  the  kindness  of  the  Greek 
ecclesiastical  authorities  in  Jerusalem,  and  of  the 
constant  attention  of  the  excellent  dragoman,  David 
Jamal,  who  was  the  Providence  of  her  little  party. 


21G387 


INTRODUCTION 


The  story  of  Jerusalem  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  in 
the  world,  besides  being  of  unparalleled  importance  to  the 
human  race.  Insignificant  in  power  even  at  its  greatest,  it 
has  been,  through  all  the  ages  of  secular  history,  no  better 
than  a  tributary  and  dependent  of  great  empires  which  have 
risen  and  fallen  and  passed  away,  yet  left  this  little  city  on 
its  hills,  always  the  most  interesting  spot  on  earth,  inde- 
structible, the  source  of  the  mightiest  influence,  the  founda- 
tion of  the  greatest  systems  of  earthly  law  and  thought. 
Before  the  literature  of  Greece  had  been  thought  of,  song 
and  story  and  the  noblest  inspirations  of  philosophy  and 
poetry  had  come  to  being  upon  the  little  crests  of  Zion 
and  Moriah  :  the  Temple  had  been  built  there  which  has 
never  faded,  though  destroyed,  burned,  broken  down  a 
dozen  times,  swept  far  from  sight  and  knowledge — from 
the  memory  and  imagination  of  men  :  and  the  records  of 
humanity  had  begun  to  be  put  forth  in  full  splendour  of 
character  and  impulse  and  feeling,  in  chronicles  which  are 
as  fresh  and  living  now  as  when  they  were  transcripts  of 
the  life  of  three  thousand  years  ago.  We  go  no  farther 
than  the  heroic  age  of  Hebrew  genius  when  we  name  this 
date :  beyond,  in  the  mist  of  the  ages,  before  even  ancient 
Egypt  had  begun  to  engrave  her  rigid  annals  upon  stone, 
the  record  goes  back,  not  in   hieroglyphics,  but  in  histories 

b 


INTRODUCTION 


of  living  men.  A  learned  sect  studies  and  scrutinises  with 
painful  confusion  of  images  what  a  great  Rameses  may- 
or may  not  have  done  :  but  the  child  of  to-day  wants  no 
better  entertainment  than  that  story  of  Joseph  and  his 
brethren  which  is  told  in  every  language  and  never  fails 
to  touch  the  simple  heart.  Before  Homer  had  begun  his 
primitive  minstrel  strain  to  celebrate  the  fights  and  wiles  of 
the  chiefs  and  kings,  Isaiah  had  risen  to  the  highest  heights 
of  poetry,  had  opened  the  great  dim  gates  of  Hades,  and 
had  revealed,  on  the  other  hand,  a  dazzling  glimpse  of  a 
Heaven  in  which  one  God  sat  upon  a  throne  of  light,  and 
judged  and  tried  the  spirits  of  men.  There  is  no  such 
record  in  all  the  histories.  The  psalms  which  began  with 
David,  breathe  forth  the  deepest  emotions  of  our  race 
to-day.  The  wisdom  which  throughout  all  the  tenacious 
East  bears  the  name  of  Solomon,  has  never  been  outpassed 
by  any  successor.  And  when  we  descend  the  course  of 
the  ages  and  come  to  a  still  more  glorious  and  wonderful 
history,  it  is  Jerusalem  still  which  is  the  scene  both  of 
tragedy  and  triumph,  of  the  greatest  and  most  wonderful 
life  which  was  ever  lived  among  men. 

We  are  told  that  the  successive  histories  in  which  all 
this  line  of  life  and  being  is  preserved,  having  now  been 
exposed  to  the  researches  of  modern  criticism,  have  been 
found  to  be  untrustworthy,  and  that  all  our  views  of  histori- 
cal truth,  and  all  our  faith  in  ancient  and  sacred  personages^ 
must  be  given  up.  The  labours  of  half-a-dozen  learned 
Germans  working  by  no  light  except  that  of  their  own 
genius,  upon  the  most  ancient  literature  in  the  world,  amid 
all  the  difficulties  attending  research  in  a  language  which 
contains  nothing  else  with  which  to  compare  or  collate 
the  works  under  examination,  and  belonging  to  a  period 
when  language  was  being  formed,  and  when  science, 
either  in  that  or  in  any  other  region,  did  not  exist — form 


INTRODUCTION 


the  sole  standing -ground  for  this  demand.  Very  few 
people  know  the  Hebrew  language,  or  are  able  to  test  these 
assertions,  except  by  such  light  of  ordinary  criticism  as 
they  may  happen  to  possess,  by  the  laws  of  literature 
and  the  force  of  nature  ;  but  I  think  that  few,  compara- 
tively, will  be  tempted  to  transfer  a  faith,  in  which  they 
have  been  trained  from  their  childhood,  to  a  small  group 
of  unknown  persons,  whose  motives  are  dubious,  and  their 
methods  more  ingenious  than  ingenuous ;  and  to  reject  on 
their  authority,  as  a  series  of  often  fraudulent  fables,  the 
history  so  full  of  nature,  so  instinct  with  every  feeling  of 
humanity,  which  has  been  the  food  of  our  imagination  and 
the  inspiration  of  our  thought,  all  our  lives.  It  is  a  blind 
confidence  which  is  required  by  them,  not  an  intelligent  faith. 
When  we  say  that  these  writers  are  inspired  by  dubious 
motives,  we  mean  that  they  are  moved  by  a  foregone  con- 
clusion, the  determined  conviction  that  everything  which  is 
based  on  supernatural  influences,  and  records  communica- 
tions between  God  and  man,  is  necessarily  untrue — which  is 
a  very  large  assumption  to  begin  with.  The  disingenuous- 
ness  of  their  methods  is  a  matter  which  could  only  be  set 
forth  in  detail,  but  will,  we  imagine,  always  strike  the  ordinary 
reader  who  has  himself  no  parti  pris.  I  have  no  claim  to 
set  myself  forth  as  one  who  has  any  authority  in  these 
matters;  but  I  may  say  on  my  own  part,  what  every  individual 
has  a  right  to  say,  that  to  transfer  my  faith  and  confidence 
from  the  writers  of  the  Old  Testament  to  the  Herrn  Wcll- 
hausen,  Kuenen,  etc.,  would  seem  to  me  the  wildest  insanity. 
Moses  I  know  and  Samuel  I  know ;  but  who  are  these  ?  To 
me,  and  to  far  the  greater  number  of  readers,  they  are  but 
names  and  no  more  :  and  to  pin  my  faith  to  their  utterances 
in  any  matter  either  human  or  divine  is  what  I  am  incapable 
of  doing.  The  little  which  I  have  read  of  these  utterances 
does  not  impress  me  with  any  sense  of  reality.      To  listen  to 


INTRODUCTION 


a  dull  voice  proclaiming  authoritatively  that  this  one  verse 
in  a  narrative  is  true  and  all  the  rest  fictitious  :  that  this 
little  group  of  words  is  to  be  received  as  genuine,  but  the 
other  part  is  a  modern  interpolation  (by  modern  being  under- 
stood a  date  two  thousand  seven,  or  five,  hundred  years  ago), 
conveys  neither  satisfaction  nor  enlightenment  to  my  mind. 
I  have  some  small  knowledge  of  how  human  character  is 
depicted,  and  the  means  by  which  a  man  who  has  departed 
from  this  world  is  made  to  live  and  breathe  again  :  and  I 
know  that  this  is  not  done  as  a  bird's  nest  is  constructed, 
by  thieving  here  and  there,  a  scrap  from  one  and  a  scrap 
from  another.  There  are  but  two  ways  which  I  can 
recognise  in  literature  of  producing  a  recognisable  and 
genuine  human  being  :  the  one  is  by  the  tale  of  his  life  as 
it  happened  ;  the  other  is  by  the  effort  of  genius  conceiving 
and  creating  such  a  man,  under  great  laws  of  truth  to  nature 
which  cannot  be  transgressed.  And  the  history  of  the  Bible 
is  above  all  things  biographical,  the  records  of  individual 
lives.  These  men  are  no  things  of  shreds  and  patches, 
but  human  beings  far  more  clearly  distinguishable,  far 
more  real,  than  the  moles  of  erudition  who  poke  about  the 
roots  of  all  history,  and  endeavour  to  make  the  world  as 
blind  as  themselves. 

I  must  add  that  I  have  read  a  little,  but  only  a 
little,  of  the  original  critics  themselves  :  but  some  of  their 
English  exponents,  and  their  great  French  disciple  and 
commentator  M.  Renan,  are  sufficiently  practicable  reading, 
and  require  no  learning  to  understand.  The  information  of 
the  latter  is  so  minute,  not  to  say  self-confident,  that 
the  careless  reader  may  well  be  confounded  by  his  light- 
hearted  assumptions  of  knowledge.  He  can  tell  little 
details  about  the  construction  of  the  Pentateuch  so  that 
it  is  scarcely  possible  to  doubt  that  he  must  have  private 
intelligence  on  the  subject,  if  not  that  the  different  editions, 


INTRODUCTION 


"redactions,"  of  which  he  discourses  so  glibly,  must  have 
been  entered  at  some  ancient  Stationers'  Hall  of  which 
the  register  has  fallen  into  his  hands.  M.  Renan  tells  us 
cheerfully  that  no  such  person  as  Abraham  ever  existed, 
and  that  on  another  page  of  his  own  book  {Lc  Peuple 
(V Israel)  there  will  be  found  "  des  donnhs  plus  solides  "  upon 
this  imaginary  personage.  But  when  we  turn,  somewhat 
anxiously,  to  that  previous  page,  we  find  nothing  but  the 
statement  of  M.  Renan,  unsupported  even  by  any  suggestion 
of  proof — a  statement  which  seems  to  me  the  least  solid  of 
all  foundations  of  belief  That  he  is  also  certain  that  David 
was  merely  a  skilful  performer  on  various  instruments,  but 
did  not  write  any  psalms,  on  the  authority  of  the  book  of 
Jasher,  is  a  confusing  statement,  and  awakens  an  impression 
in  the  mind  that  the  book  of  Jasher  is  a  new  document 
which  may  throw  much  light  upon  the  old.  But  when  we 
find  that  M.  Renan  knows  no  more  of  the  book  of  Jasher 
than  we  ourselves  do — that  is,  by  means  of  two  very  brief 
allusions  to  it  in  the  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament 
— that  impression  gives  way  to  another  very  distinct  one, 
which  is,  that  the  device  of  throwing  dust  in  our  eyes  is  not 
a  new  one,  but  is  very  ingeniou.s,  and  a  favourite  method  in 
this  argument.  This  is  the  proof  he  brings  forward  to 
invalidate  the  force  of  a  tradition  which,  according  to  his 
own  showing,  has  been  persistent  and  unbroken  for  two 
thousand  eight  hundred  years  among  the  most  tenacious 
people  in  the  world.  An  English  expositor  of  the  same 
doctrines,  a  clergyman,  but  too  insignificant  to  name,  varies 
this  assertion  further,  and  informs  us  very  confidently  that 
David  wrote  nothing  but  drinking  songs  :  and  this  on  the 
authority  of  a  verse  in  the  Prophet  Amos,  where  he  upbraids 
the  careless  for  their  indifference  to  the  fate  of  their  country 
while  occupied  with  smaller  matters,  such  as  inventing  in- 
struments   of  music,    like    David.      The    reader   will   judge 


INTRODUCTION 


whether  his  faith  in  Abraham  or  in  David  —  men  whom  he 
has  known  from  his  youth  up,  of  whom  he  has  in  his  hands 
the  unvarnished  record,  in  which  there  is  nought  extenuate, 
but  everything  good  and  bad  impartially  set  down  —  is 
shaken  by  such  assertions. 

The  chief  principle  laid  down  by  the  new  criticism  is 
that  the  laws  of  Moses,  and  all  the  authoritative  teaching  of 
the  Old  Testament,  were  gradually  invented,  put  together,  and 
made  into  a  code,  by  a  series  of  priestly  writers,  amplifying 
and  enlarging  in  every  generation  the  religious  system  which 
put  an  unlimited  sway  into  their  hands,  forging,  interpolat- 
ing, inventing  in  one  case  a  whole  new  book  of  the  law,  at 
one  stroke,  in  the  name  of  God,  and  under  the  lying  pretence 
that  it  was  all  ancient  and  directly  inspired  by  Him.  The 
principle  (proclaimed)  of  the  critics  is  the  antagonistic  one 
that  nothing  came  from  God  at  all,  that  there  is  no  super- 
natural authority  for  anything,  that  communications  between 
God  and  man  are  impossible,  and  therefore  could  not  be.  We 
have  thus  two  parties  to  the  debate,  according  to  their  ideas, 
occupying  an  exactly  similar  standing  ground,  both  working 
towards  a  foregone  conclusion:  the  priests  and  scribes  to  invent 
their  law,  and  make  it  as  lifelike  as  possible  ;  the  critics  to 
prove  that  it  is  all  invention  ;  neither  one  nor  other  caring 
much  for  that  ideal  Truth  in  whose  name  so  many  lies  are 
accumulated,  but  only  seeking  "proof,"  which  is  a  very  different 
thing,  of  their  own  theories.  Of  the  priests  and  the  scribes  far 
off  in  the  mist  of  the  ages  we  can  ill  judge,  save  by  these 
works  which  they  have  left,  and  which,  to  most  of  us,  prove 
the  marks  of  their  true  origin  very  clearly  :  but  of  the  critics 
we  are  at  full  liberty  to  judge,  for  they  do  not  conceal  the  fact 
that  everything  they  do  is  done  with  the  distinct  motive  of 
proving  their  own  negative.  M.  Renan  rejoices,  as  the 
accomplished  end  of  their  inquiries,  that  every  one  is  now  able 
to  form    his  own   romance  about   the  origin   of  religion,  it 


INTRODUCTION 


being  clearly  proved  that  no  religion  has  any  supernatural 
origin,  and  that  God,  if  there  is  a  God,  never  spoke  to  man 
at  all.  In  what  then  can  the  unlearned  take  refuge?  In 
proofs  like  those  quoted  above  ?  in  the  disintegration  of  a 
consistent  and  living  record  ?  My  own  conclusion  is  very 
simple.  I  will  take  Herr  Wellhausen's  word  for  nothing, 
above  all  for  nothing  on  which  he  has  formed  his  theory 
before  he  began  to  inquire  into  the  subject.  I  will  take 
M.  Renan's  word  for  less  than  nothing,  were  that  possible, 
because  he  has  abundantly  proved  himself  incapable  of 
judging  in  respect  to  all  the  higher  mysteries  of  human 
character,  thought,  and  feeling.  Abraham  I  know  and 
David  I  know ;  but  who  are  these  ? 

In  speaking  thus,  I  speak  only  as  one  of  the  masses, 
unacquainted  with  the  ancient  language  in  which  these 
researches  are  carried  on,  as  is  the  case  of  most  people,  and 
entirely  unqualified  to  enter  into  its  earliest  utterances,  or 
judge  in  any  matter  of  codexes  or  subtleties  of  accent  for 
myself  I  cannot  understand  how,  setting  aside  the  only 
record  in  existence  of  those  times,  a  man  of  our  own  can 
pronounce  authoritatively  that  another  certain  man  living 
three  thousand  years  ago  did  not  do  what  that  record  says 
he  did,  and  what  all  the  ages  since,  and  especially  his 
own  nation,  by  all  its  traditions,  consistent  and  unbroken, 
have  asserted  and  believed  him  to  have  done.  Without 
that  record  we  may  say  that  no  such  person  as  David 
ever  existed,  as  the  reader  knows  it  has  been  already 
asserted  there  was  no  such  person  as  Abraham.  But  why, 
in  the  face  of  that  only  witness,  admitting  his  existence, 
we  should  take  from  him  those  works  by  which  he  is  most 
chiefly  known,  I  am  unable  to  conceive.  The  use  of  criti- 
cism may  justifiably  come  in  to  examine  and  judge,  according 
to  the  differing  style  and  references  of  the  Psalms,  which 
may  be  most  surely  attributed  to  David,  and  which  to  later 


INTRODUCTION 


writers.  This  commends  itself  to  reason.  I  do  not  think 
the  other  does  so,  especially  as  I  find  nothing  but  mere 
sweeping  denial  of  a  fact  which  rests  not  only  upon  the 
assertion  of  the  only  existing  witnesses,  but  on  the  unbroken 
tradition  of  a  people  whose  records  arc  avowedly  the  most 
ancient  and  the  most  continuous  of  all  nations  on  the  earth. 
I  believe  it  has  been  quite  impossible  (in  a  very  much  less 
important  matter)  to  come  to  any  certain  conclusion  in 
respect,  for  example,  to  the  so-called  poems  of  Ossian,  a 
publication  of  this  century,  of  avowedly  modern  redaction. 
Are  they  genuine  ?  are  they  not  so?  It  is  difficult  to  believe 
that  any  natural  and  genuine  bard  ever  uttered  anything  so 
inflated  and  artificial  :  yet  it  is  equally  impossible  to  deny 
that  there  is  foundation  in  the  floating  traditions  of  the 
Highlands  for  much  that  was  published  by  Macpherson. 
Thus,  in  a  question  of  our  own  age,  with  all  the  materials 
within  our  reach,  no  absolute  certainty  has  ever  been 
attained,  notwithstanding  that  the  internal  evidence  is  against 
those  high-flown  strains.  But  in  the  case  of  the  Psalms  of 
David,  the  internal  evidence  is  all  in  favour  of  the  identity  of 
the  poet.  They  are  not  high-flown  :  they  are  the  voice  of  a 
natural  man  of  high  genius  and  strong  emotions  in  the  very 
circumstances  in  which  David  is  allowed  to  have  been 
placed.  So  natural  are  they,  utterances  so  true  of  the 
troubled  or  the  thoughtful  mind  in  the  midst  of  the  struggles 
of  life,  that  our  deepest  emotions  find  expression  in  them 
to-day.  What  object,  then,  can  there  be  in  seeking  for  them 
another  author  ?  The  Bacon  to  that  Shakspeare  must  have 
lived  with  him,  suffered  with  him,  rejoiced  with  him,  if  it  is 
not  himself  who  thus  pours  forth  his  heart,  in  the  fields  of 
Bethlehem,  under  the  great  stars  almost  projected  out  of 
heaven  in  their  grandeur — or  in  the  high  places  of  Israel, 
and  the  gates  through  which,  with  songs  and  rejoicing,  he 
carried   the   Ark    of  the    Lord.      Who  is   it  ?    what   closest 


INTRODUCTION  XVU 


comrade  ?  what  dearest  friend  ?  what  all-devoted  poet  ?  if  it 
is  not  David,  the  sinner  and  sorrowful,  the  man  of  passion 
and  strife,  of  penitence  and  confession,  the  man  we  know  ? 
To  another  man  whom  I  do  not  know,  whom  no  one  ventures 
to  name,  I  will  not  transfer  the  songs  that  have  been  sung 
as  his  for  three  thousand  years,  the  first  strains  of  divine 
poetry  ever  revealed  to  mine  and  to  many  another  infant 
soul. 

This  book,  it  will  be  seen,  has  no  claim  upon  the 
attention  of  the  erudite.  Let  them  not  lose  ten  tickings  of 
their  watch  on  this  unprofitable  writing.  It  is  addressed 
only  to  those  for  whom  the  soil  of  Palestine,  so  fondly  and 
so  long  known  as  the  Holy  Land,  is  peopled  with  the 
known  and  loved,  the  poets  and  sages  and  kings  with  whom 
we  are  familiar  as  with  the  records  of  our  own  lives  :  and 
consecrated  to  all  time  by  One,  more  wonderful  than  it  had 
entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive,  until  He  came, 
the  climax  and  divine  completion  of  the  old  world,  the 
divine  leader,  teacher,  and  Lord  of  the  new. 


CONTENTS 

PART    I 
THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID 

CHAPTER    I 

The  Shepherd  of  Bethlehem    .' 

CHAPTER   n 
The  Outlaw  in  the  Wilderness 


The  King  of  Israel 


Solomon 


CHAPTER   III 


CHAPTER   IV 


CHAPTER  V 


PAGE 
3 


27 


60 


127 


The  Kings  of  Judah .         .164 

PART    II 
THE  PROPHETS 


Isaiah 


Jeremiah 


Ezekiel 


CHAPTER   I 


CHAPTER   II 


CHAPTER    III 


203 


242 


291 


XX  CONTENTS 

PART    III 
THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION 

CHAPTER    I 

PAGE 

Zerubbabel — Ezra       .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .317 

CHAPTER    H 
Nehemiah     ..........     347 

CHAPTER    HI 
The  Maccabees 368 


PART    IV 
THE  FINAL  TRAGEDY 

CHAPTER   I 
The  Son  of,  David 387 


CHAPTER    n 
Messias 


435 


CHAPTER   HI 
The  End  of  the  Jewish  Dispensation      .         .         .         .     467 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


The  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre       .         .  Frontispiece 

Distant  View  of  Bethlehem 7 

Ravine  of  the  Kedron,     Wilderness  of  Engedi     .        .       31 

Hebron 65 

The  Ancient  Jebus.      Jerusalem  of  David's  Time  (con- 
jectural)       .         .         .         • 70 

The  Jerusalem  of  Solomon  (conjectural)        .        .        .71 
Absalom's  Pillar.     Valley  of  Jehoshaphat      .        .        .107 
The  Wall  of  Wailing  :   ancient  Wall  of  Temple  En- 
closure   133 

A  Cedar  of  Lebanon 136 

Valley  of    Jehoshaphat,   with    Rocks   of   Siloam,    the 

Dwelling  of  the  Tyrian  Masons        .        .        .        -139 

Yamuch,  a  Port  of  Lebanon 142 

The  Interior  of  the  Temple  Enclosure  :   the  Golden 

Gate 153 

Sebastieh  (Samaria) 169 

Samaria:  Ruins  of  Crusaders'  Church  in  Foreground.     175 

A  Street  in  Jerusalem 180 

Pool  of  Hezekiah 189 

David's  Tomb,  Jerusalem 219 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

Jericho  and  the  Dead  Sea 225 

JEZREEL 254 

The  Valley  of  Jehoshaphat:  Ascent  by  Moriah    .         .261 

Ancient  Manuscript  at  Shechem 270 

BANIAS  :    NEAR   the    ANCIENT    DAN 280 

Jerusalem  :   North  -  eastern  Corner.      Neby  Samwil   in 

THE  Distance 282 

The  Golden  Gate 311 

Dome  of   the  Rock,  situated  on  the  Site  of   the  an- 
cient Temple 323 

In  the  Temple  Enclosure:  the  Tomb  of  Elias       .         ,  333 

Sculptured  Capital 337 

Sculptured  Capital    .         .         .         .         .         .         .         -339 

North-east  Corner  of  Wall,  Temple  Enclosure  (Haram- 

esh-Sherif) .  352 

Western  Wall  of  Jerusalem,  with  Jaffa  Gate      .         -357 

Open-air  Pulpit  in  the  Temple  Enclosure      ,         .         .  364 
Village  of  Banias  (C^sarea  Philippi),  on  the  Sources 

OF  Jordan 383 

Nazareth 389 

The  Bethlehem  Road 392 

Rachel's  Tomb,  on  the  Way  to  Bethlehem     .         .         .  394 

Convent  of  the  Nativity,  Bethlehem      ....  396 

A  Street  in  Bethlehem 401 

Lake  of  Galilee  :   the  Horns  of  Hattin,  on  which  the 

Sermon  on  the  Mount  was  preached,  in  the  Distance  409 

Tiberias:  Lake  of  Galilee 421 

Tiberias 437 

Ain-et-Tin  :  Lake  of  Galilee      ......  440 


ILLUSTRATIONS  xxill 


PAGE 

Pilgrims'  Tent:  Ain-et-Tin,  near  Bethsaida  .  .  .  442 
On  the  Shores  of  the  Lake  of  Galilee  .  .  .445 
Khan  on  the  Road  to  Jericho,  by  Tradition  that  of 

the  Good  Samaritan 460 

Jericho  Road:  Traditional  Spot  where  the  Man  fell 

AMONG  Thieves 465 

From  Bethany,  looking  towards  Jericho  .  .  .  470 
Syrian  Children  with  Palm  Branches    .        .        .        .475 

On  the  Hill  of  Evil  Counsel 477 

El-Aksa  :  IN  THE  Temple  Enclosure         ....  485 

Ancient  Olive-Tree  in  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane      .  494 

Fountain  near  the  Gate  of  the  Chain  ....  497 

The  Via  Dolorosa 501 


PART  I 
THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  SHEPHERD  OF  BETHLEHEM 

In  the  days  when  Israel  first  desired  a  king,  when  the 
troubled  period  of  the  Judges  had  come  to  an  end,  and 
rising  strength  and  numbers  impelled  the  Hebrews  to  a 
more  full  and  thorough  carrying  out  of  the  conquest  of 
their  promised  land,  one  of  the  strong  little  cities  peculiar 
to  the  country,  where  every  village  was  planted  upon  a  hill- 
side, for  natural  defence  and  strength,  stood  in  an  exception- 
ally strong  position,  surrounded  on  three  sides  by  the  ridges 
of  protecting  hills,  a  city  of  the  Jebusites,  which,  during  all 
these  wild  years  of  war  and  bloodshed,  had  retained  its 
little  nationality,  and  withstood  the  assaults  of  the  invaders. 
In  the  early  days,  when  all  as  yet  was  chaos  in  history,  the 
strangers  from  the  wilderness,  swarming  into  the  land,  took 
and  lost  again  many  strongholds,  which  were  reoccupied  by 
their  native  inhabitants  as  the  fluctuating  horde  rose  and  fell, 
and  a  fairer  region,  or  one  more  ready  for  their  uses,  tempted 
an  individual  band,  even  after  victory,  to  stream  on  to  further 
conquests,  indifferent  to  those  already  made.  In  this  way 
the  Jebusite  city  more  than  once  fell  and  rose  again. 

But  when  David  became  king,  and  united,  after  civil 
war  and  many  disturbances,  the  whole  nation  of  Israel 
under  one  head,  something  in  the  form  of  a  capital,  or 
centre  of  royal  authority,  from  whence  laws  might  pro- 
ceed, and  where  government  should  dwell,  must  have 
become  necessary.  David  was  at  this  time  living  in 
Hebron,  at  the   farther  end   of  his   kingdom,  a  place  with 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVJD 


no  claim  either  to  central  position  or  special  strength. 
Saul,  his  predecessor,  had,  it  would  appear,  entertained  no 
idea  of  royal  state  or  central  authority.  He  was  a  man 
of  war,  and  no  statesman  ;  the  experiment  of  kingship  was 
new,  against  all  the  previous  ideas  of  the  tribes  :  and  the  first 
king,  in  his  confused  and  troubled  intelligence,  and  life  of 
excitement,  warfare,  and  mistake,  had  little  time  for  those 
ideas  of  consolidation  and  permanent  establishment  which 
are  necessary  for  the  maintenance  of  authority  and  govern- 
ment. We  are  not  told  in  what  way  David  was  directed 
towards  the  little  stronghold  of  the  Jebusites  as  the  site  of 
his  throne.  It  would  seem  to  have  been  his  own  personal 
choice,  not  indicated  to  him  by  any  oracle.  He  must  have 
been  acquainted  with  it  in  his  youth,  must  have  skirted  the 
hill  on  which  it  stood  many  times  in  the  course  of  his  early 
wanderings  and  dangers  ;  and,  lover  of  Nature  and  of  all 
things  beautiful  as  he  was,  no  doubt  the  little  city  set  on  a 
hill,  always  so  charming  an  object,  as  well  as  the  more 
practical  recommendation  of  those  steep  slopes  and  ridges 
of  rock  almost  impregnable  to  the  efforts  of  early  warfare, 
must  have  caught  his  dreaming  eyes  on  many  occasions 
long  before  he  was  conscious  that  one  day  or  another  he 
should  there  found  a  royal  city  and  set  up  a  throne. 

The  spot  had  other  associations,  though  they  are  not 
mentioned  in  the  narrative,  and  probably  have  been  en- 
larged and  dwelt  upon  only  in  later  times.  If  there  was 
any  tradition  of  Abraham's  sacrifice  lingering  about  the 
green  but  rocky  hill  which  lay  opposite  the  Jebusite  city, 
it  must  have  been  faint  and  dim,  especially  as,  at  that  time, 
when  places  of  sacrifice  were  many,  and  every  famous 
inhabitant  had  somewhere  built  an  altar,  even  so  great 
and  memorable  a  sacrifice  as  that  of  Abraham  would 
scarcely  bear  the  importance  which  has  attached  to  it  in 
later  days.  We  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
young  warrior  had  as  yet  conceived  the  great  idea  of  a 
temple  to  be  placed  upon  that  twin  hill,  and  the  double 
strength  of  altar  and  throne  to  be  thus  given  to  the  capital 
of  his  kingdom.      But  the  Jebusite  city  at  once  pleased  his 


THE  SHEPHERD  OF  BETHLEHEM 


eye  and  satisfied  his  mind  as  adapted  for  his  purpose.  It 
was,  if  not  in  an  absolutely  central  position,  as  near  so  as 
could  be  while  still  within  the  vicinity  and  protection  of 
the  tribe  of  Judah,  the  kindred  and  natural  partisans  and 
followers  of  the  new  king.  As  it  stood  there,  high  on  its 
rocky  height,  looking  over  the  rounded  summit  of  Moriah 
to  the  loftier  slopes  of  the  mountain  now  known  to  us  with 
all  its  pathetic  and  sacred  associations  as  the  Mount  of 
Olives,  the  sun  dwelling  upon  it  in  all  his  course  from  east 
to  west,  the  steep  streets  in  it  so  strong  that  the  blind  and 
the  lame,  according  to  the  brag  of  its  ciders,  were  enough  to 
defend  it  even  against  that  man  of  valour,  the  great  chief 
and  warrior  David — the  little  city  was  full  to  him  of  every 
fierce  and  every  gentle  attraction,  a  much -envied  prize,  a 
place  which  had  scorned  and  defied  him,  a  mount  of  vision 
and  beauty  satisfactory  to  all  the  poetic  fancies  of  his  heart. 
That  jest  about  the  blind  and  the  lame  would  seem  specially 
to  have  piqued  the  young  conqueror  who  had  overcome  so 
many  things  and  was  not  now  to  be  daunted,  only  excited 
and  drawn  on  by  the  temerity  of  the  rash  Jebusites,  a  little 
people  of  no  account,  who  thus  dared  and  defied  the  Lord's 
anointed.  And  we  know  that  neither  these  feeble  defenders 
nor  all  the  strength  of  the  townsmen  could  keep  out  the 
victorious  bands  of  Judah.  The  city  was  taken,  the  fortress, 
high  upon  the  western  height,  and  all  the  low  square  and 
windowless  hovels  which  hung  about  it.  In  all  probability 
there  has  been  little  change  since  then  in  the  strange  little 
dark  dwellings  which  Arabs  and  Syrians  still  inhabit  in  our 
own  days,  and  which  arc  rather  shelters  from  the  sun  by  day 
and  the  dew  by  night  for  a  people  whose  life  is  chiefly  spent 
in  the  open  air,  than  dwellings  such  as  we  understand. 
Many  a  hillside  throughout  Palestine  still  shows  around  the 
one  point  of  distinction,  the  fort  or  mosque  which  is  its 
centre,  those  level  lines,  square  and  low,  with  openings  of 
wide  doorways  and  flat  roofs  of  mingled  clay  and  straw,  or 
something  less  savoury  still,  which  are  the  houses  natural  to 
the  soil,  often  expanding  into  chambers  darker,  yet  cooler 
still,  wrought  out  in  the  rock  below  or  behind. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID 


Such,  no  doubt,  was  the  city  which  David  took,  and 
which  he  made  into  the  city  of  David,  the  stronghold  of 
Zion,  a  city  which  has  had  more  influence  on  the  world  than 
any  other  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  Great  has  been  the 
power  of  Athens,  great  that  of  imperial  Rome,  but  from 
Jerusalem  has  come  an  inspiration  more  lofty,  an  influence 
more  continuous,  than  cither.  The  springs  of  life  which 
rose  within  that  rocky  enclosure  flow  yet  through  all  the 
world — through  all  our  world  it  would  perhaps  be  more  just 
to  say,  seeing  that  as  yet  the  far-distant  East  has  been  little 
influenced  by  them  :  though  it  would  be  indeed  a  mistake  to 
assert  that  the  creed  of  Mahomet  was  unconnected  with  that 
potent  fountain-head  from  which  it  has  derived  almost  all 
that  is  worthy  in  it.  In  the  meantime,  however,  our  object 
is  more  limited  than  to  discuss  the  influence  which  that  little 
strip  of  country,  that  little  rocky  stronghold,  have  had  upon 
the  world.  In  the  first  place  comes  its  actual  early  history, 
and  that  of  the  Eastern  hero  and  warrior,  the  shepherd,  the 
poet,  the  feudatory  chieftain,  the  king  of  Israel,  who  first 
made  for  it  an  everlasting  name. 

David,  the  son  of  Jesse,  of  the  tribe  of  Judah  and  the 
town  of  Bethlehem  or  Ephrath — the  latter  being  the  ancient 
name  of  the  time  of  the  patriarchs — was  the  youngest  of  a 
large  family  possessing  land  and  some  importance  in  the 
district,  which  was  one  of  much  agricultural  and  pastoral 
wealth.  The  soft  slopes  on  which  the  town  is  placed,  the 
green  and  smiling  valley,  broader  than  those  ravines  among 
the  hills  which  are  so  characteristic  of  the  land  of  Judea, 
give  it  a  character  of  peacefulness  and  primitive  wealth. 
The  gray  town  lies  along  the  side  of  the  hill  in  a  prolonged 
line,  as  if  it  never  had  been  gathered  together  for  protection 
under  any  rude  little  stronghold  ;  and  indeed  there  is  little 
record  of  fighting  about  this  chosen  and  fertile  spot.  The 
valley  is  so  green,  so  wide  and  level,  that  it  might  almost,  in 
this  land  of  rocks  and  hills,  be  called  a  plain  ;  and,  no  doubt, 
all  that  genial  expanse  was  filled  with  corn  and  productive 
trees,  while  the  grazing  land  occupied  the  farther  slopes  and 
edge  of  the  valley.      Though  Jesse  was  a  substantial   man, 


THE  SHEPHERD  OF  BETHLEHEM 


rich  enough  to  send  liberal  supplies  to  his  sons  with  the 
army,  and  offerings  to  propitiate  their  captain,  his  household, 
like  all  families  of  the  time,  was  fully  occupied  by  the  care 
of  the  family  property  and  possessions,  on  a  footing  very 
little  different  from  that  of  the  servants  born  in  the  house, 
who  were  a  sort  of  humble  brethren  and  counted  among 
its  children.  David  was  the  shepherd-boy,  the  lowest  and 
least  skilled  of  the  brothers  in  those  early  days,  when 
Samuel,  the  old  prophet  from   Ramah,  paid  a  visit  to  their 


DISTANT   VIEW   OF    BETHLEHEM 


city,  and  honoured  the  house  of  Jesse  by  choosing  it  for  his 
resting-place.  The  public  reason  for  this  visit  was  to  offer  a 
sacrifice,  an  object  apparently  accepted  as  natural  and  just 
by  the  elders  of  the  town  ;  but  Samuel's  chief  motive  and 
interest  was  in  his  review  of  the  sons  of  Jesse,  seven  young 
men  of  fine  stature  and  good  looks,  any  one  of  whom 
appeared  to  the  prophet  fit  for  the  divine  choice  ;  but  not 
among  them  was  the  chosen  of  the  Lord. 

The  youngest  was  absent,  keeping  the  sheep — a  boy  of  no 
particular  account  in  the  presence  of  the  firstborn  and  his 
stalwart  brethren,  yet  a  beautiful  lad,  ruddy  and  fresh  as  the 
dews  of  the  morning,  as  are  still  the  handsome  and  gentle 
race  which  inhabit  Bethlehem.  In  the  leisure  of  his  occupa- 
tion— the  most  thoughtful  and  poetical  of  all  rural  pursuits — 
no  doubt  this  youth  had  begun  to  feel  the  rising  of  the 
poet's  passion,  the  elation  and  inspiration  of  that  gift  which 
more   than  any  other   lifts  up   the   heart.      The   light   that 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID 


never  was  on  sea  or  shore  lit  up  for  him  the  beloved  valley, 
the  encircling  hills.  He  had  already  seen  in  his  waking 
dreams,  in  the  early  light,  the  sun,  all  radiant  in  triumph 
and  glory,  come  forth  like  a  bridegroom  from  his  chamber  : 
and  had  considered  the  heavens  which  God  had  made,  when 
suddenly,  as  the  day  ended,  the  moon  and  the  stars  came 
forth,  silently  proclaiming  the  praises  of  the  Lord.  All 
these  natural  sounds  and  sights  had  entered  into  his  heart, 
which  was  full  of  that  tender  piety  of  youth  not  always 
maintained  in  maturer  life,  which  is  one  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful aspects  of  humanity.  That  he  also  possessed  great 
courage  and  strength  is  evident  from  the  statement  of  his 
struggle  with  the  lion  and  the  bear  in  defence  of  his  flocks. 

But,  great  as  was  the  promise  of  his  early  years, 
young  David,  amid  the  members  of  the  household,  was 
but  the  junior — a  youth  unacquainted  with  the  world  and 
its  fiercer  enjoyments  of  battle  and  raid,  at  the  time  of  the 
old  prophet's  visit.  How  it  was  that  the  anointing  of 
David,  which  was  Samuel's  special  mission,  attracted  so 
little  notice,  it  is  difficult  to  tell  ;  but  neither  the  family 
nor  David  himself  seem  to  have  attached  any  import- 
ance to  it.  It  must  have  appeared  to  them  only  a 
special  kindness,  a  mark  of  affectionate  interest  in  the 
youth  from  the  old  man,  and  was  probably  rather  a 
favour  accorded  to  Samuel  himself,  to  show  him  where 
the  king  more  worthy  than  Saul  was  to  be  found,  than  any 
sign  of  future  sovereignty  made  known  to  David.  His 
brothers  do  not  even  taunt  him  with  it,  as  Joseph's  brethren 
taunted  him  with  his  dreams,  though  the  firstborn,  the  head 
of  the  house,  was  so  wroth  with  his  presumption  on  an  after- 
occasion  in  venturing  to  put  himself  forth  as  the  champion 
of  Israel.  That  such  compliments  were  not  unknown  may 
be  seen  from  various  allusions  throughout  the  sacred  writings  ; 
"  Thou  anointest  my  head  with  oil,"  David  himself  says 
in  the  23d  Psalm,  meaning,  it  is  evident,  a  sign  of  favour 
and  kindness,  not  a  sacred  consecration.  When  the  sacrifice 
and  the  feast  which  Samuel  came  to  make  at  Bethlehem 
were    accomplished,  the    townsfolk,   no    doubt,  escorted    the 


THE  SHEPHERD  OF  BETHLEHEM 


old  prophet  back  upon  his  way  to  his  house  at  Ramah, 
young  David,  to  whom  he  had  shown  such  special  favour, 
first  among  the  nimble  youths  that  ran  by  the  old  man's 
side  as  he  ambled  upon  his  mule  along  the  narrow  paths 
between  the  fields,  as  still  the  young  attendants  run,  to 
anticipate  any  wish  of  the  great  man  they  escort  and  accom- 
pany, to  lead  his  beast  over  the  hard  places  of  the  way,  and 
render  him  that  reverential  homage  which  is  never  so  perfect 
as  in  the  East.  And  then  the  soft  landscape,  the  young 
shepherd-lad,  disappear  from  our  vision  for  a  time,  and  the 
prophet  goes  his  way  to  the  disappointments  that  awaited 
him — -the  endless  chidings  and  heartburnings  which  attended 
the  troubled  path  of  Saul. 

Of  the  shepherd's  youthful  life  we  have  no  further  record 
unless  in  the  songs  which,  whether  produced  then  or  in  an 
after  day,  are  doubtless  the  product  of  his  early  thoughts 
and  experiences  as  he  watched  his  flocks  by  night,  like  those 
other  shepherds  in  the  same  fields  to  whom  the  birth  of 
David's  Son  and  Lord  was  announced  in  the  after  ages — or 
led  them  about  during  the  day  by  hillside  and  deep  valley, 
by  the  green  pastures  and  beside  the  quiet  waters.  Perhaps 
he  did  not  acquire  so  much  command  of  language  in  his 
early  youth  as  to  compose  that  Psalm  which  we  all  know  so 
well :  but  it  must  have  been  floating  in  his  mind  as  he  led 
his  sheep  over  the  pleasant  slopes  and  flowery  turf  of  his 
father's  pastureland.  The  reader  will  forgive  me  if  I  quote 
that  Psalm  in  the  version  dear  to  Scotland — the  first  that 
every  child  in  that  country  learns,  the  homeliest,  yet  faith- 
fullest  translation  of  David's  shepherd  song — 

The  Lord's  my  Shepherd,  I'll  not  want. 

He  makes  me  down  to  lie 
In  pastures  green  :   He  Icadeth  me 

The  quiet  waters  by. 
My  soul  He  doth  restore  a<jain  ; 

And  me  to  walk  doth  make 
Within  the  paths  of  righteousness, 

Ev'n  for  His  own  name's  sake. 

Yea,  though  I  walk  in  death's  dark  vale. 
Yet  will  I  fear  none  ill  : 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID 


For  Thou  art  with  me  ;  and  Thy  rod 

And  staff  me  comfort  still. 
My  table  Thou  hast  furnished 

In  presence  of  my  foes  ; 
My  head  Thou  dost  with  oil  anoint, 

And  my  cup  overflows. 

Goodness  and  mercy  all  my  life 

Shall  surely  follow  me  : 
And  in  God's  house  for  evermore 

My  dwelling-place  shall  be. 

Another  picture  never  to  be  obliterated  came  into  his 
dreaming  soul  when  he  sat  by  night,  with  that  great 
Eastern  heaven  stretched  out  above  him — the  balmy  breath  of 
the  wonderful  atmosphere,  the  great  stars  so  near  in  the  pulsa- 
tions of  ineffable  light,  the  broad  serene  calm  of  the  moon. 

When  I  consider  the  heavens, 

The  work  of  Thy  hands, 
The  moon  and  the  stars. 

Which  Thou  hast  ordained  ; 
What  is  man. 

That  Thou  art  mindful  of  him  ? 
Or  the  son  of  man. 

That  Thou  visitest  him  ? 

Modern  critics  are  eager  to  assure  us  that  these  wonder- 
ful words  could  not  have  come  from  the  lips  of  the  shepherd 
youth  of  Bethlehem.  But  there  is  no  proof  to  be  given  of 
this  assertion  that  can  weigh  for  a  moment  against  the 
long-continued  tradition  in  their  favour  of  his  nation,  the 
only  one  on  earth  which  can  claim  any  historical  connec- 
tion with  times  beyond  the  farthest  ken  of  the  science  of 
history.  They  have  borne  his  name  for  thousands  of  years  : 
they  follow  all  the  indications  of  his  life.  Few  poems  even 
of  the  latest  times  can  have  a  more  satisfactory  guarantee. 

Thus  he  sat  and  sang  his  happy  songs  in  the  pleasant 
valley  and  upon  the  fragrant  hill,  with  the  low  line  of  the 
roofs  of  Bethlehem  and  the  distant  enclosure  of  his  father's 
house  shining  under  the  broad  radiance  of  that  Eastern 
moon,  and  all  manner  of  great  thoughts  swelling  in  his 
youthful  bosom,  ambitions  perhaps — the  vague  ecstasy  of 
those  visions  of  distinction  and  fame,  and  of  making  a  great 


THE  SHEPHERD  OF  BETHLEHEM 


name,  which  arc  common  to  the  dreaming  boy,  whether  in 
the  east  or  in  the  west,  in  ancient  ages  or  at  this  day.  He 
who  invented  instruments  of  music  in  his  latter  days,  and 
took  so  much  pains  with  the  choirs  and  anthems  of  the 
national  worship,  we  may  be  sure  had  made  himself  some 
shepherd's  pipe  upon  which  to  play,  more  melodious,  let  us 
hope,  than  the  doleful  Arab  pipe  which  sounds  upon  those 
slopes  in  the  present  age.  In  that  same  valley,  so  full  of 
associations,  Ruth,  the  young  widow  from  the  land  of  Moab, 
whose  name  has  become  a  symbol  of  faithful  affection, 
gleaned  "  among  the  alien  corn,"  and  won  the  heart  of  the 
rich  landowner  Boaz  ;  and  in  an  age  scarcely  then  forgotten, 
Rahab,  another  foreign  woman  of  less  creditable  antecedents 
but  equal  faith,  came  up  from  the  deep  banks  of  the  Jordan 
into  this  fertile  and  tranquil  place,  and  found,  we  may  be 
permitted  to  suppose,  in  the  house  of  one  of  the  men  whose 
lives  she  had  saved  at  Jericho,  a  home  and  refuge.  The 
blood  of  both  these  women  ran  in  the  veins  of  Jesse's  son. 
He  was  thus  of  kin  to  other  races,  with  a  mingling  in  him 
of  foreign  instincts,  and  perhaps  had  inherited  tastes  and 
dreams  of  beauty  and  luxury  unknown  to  the  desert- 
wanderers  of  Israel  from  the  older  civilisation  of  the  rich 
Jericho  and  the  cities  of  Moab.  But  chief  of  all,  he  had 
the  blood  of  the  conquerors  in  his  veins,  the  tradition  of 
those  victorious  bands  who  had  overrun  the  rich  country, 
and  pulled  one  by  one  the  little  monarchs  of  the  land  from 
their  seats.  His  thoughts  were  of  all  these  things  while  he 
fulfilled  his  youthful  occupation  about  the  pleasant  hills. 
An  English  youth  with  perhaps  a  Spanish  grandmother, 
with  the  tradition  of  some  dazzling  beauty  from  the  East 
among  his  progenitors,  might  thus  feel  himself  the  inheritor 
of  all  the  races,  mingling  the  romance  of  his  foreign  ances- 
tresses with  the  masterful  confidence  of  the  Englishmen  who 
had  conquered  and  assimilated  all  these  alien  glories.  And 
David,  in  the  fair  country  in  which  he  was  born,  must  have 
felt  the  thrill  of  the  stranger  inspiration,  the  poetry  of  the 
beautiful  women  thus  made  to  contribute  to  the  perfection 
of  his  race.      I  have  heard  a  hot  theorist  deny  the  proposi- 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D 


tion  disagreeable  to  him,  that  our  Lord  Himself,  according 
to  the  flesh,  was  a  Jew,  by  reference  to  this,  so  far  back, 
mingled  parentage,  the  woman  of  Moab  and  the  woman  of 
Jericho — a  very  futile  argument.  But  to  David,  though  a 
Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews,  they  were  not  far  back,  and  the 
romance  and  tradition  of  them  were  warm  in  his  veins. 
Here  she  of  Jericho  must  have  passed  in  the  conqueror's 
train,  clinging  perhaps  to  the  desert  warrior  whom  she  had 
saved,  and  who  had  saved  her  in  return  ;  and  here  Ruth 
had  wandered,  forlorn  among  the  women  of  the  place,  with 
no  one  to  take  her  part  save  the  astute  old  woman  in  the 
village  whom  she  had  followed  far  from  her  own  people. 
Thus  every  element  of  poetry  and  romance  lay  about  young 
David's  feet  as  he  led  his  sheep  through  the  gate  at  which 
his  forefather  Boaz  plucked  off  his  kinsman's  shoe,  and  past 
the  well  for  whose  waters  he  longed  afterwards  in  the  ex- 
haustion of  battle.  Poetry  and  romance  are  not  the  ideas 
which  many  people  associate  with  the  Old  Testament  narra- 
tives, and  yet  how  full  of  both  these  records  are ! 

The  curious  incidental  description  of  how  the  youth  of 
Bethlehem,  on  account  of  his  fame  as  a  musician,  was 
sought  to  soothe  the  troubled  moods  of  Saul,  is  independent 
of  chronology  ;  yet  this  must  have  occurred  between  the  time 
of  Samuel's  visit  to  Bethlehem  and  that  important  expedi- 
tion to  the  army  to  see  his  brethren  which  decided  David's 
after  fate.  It  is  strange  to  find  Saul  inquiring  who  was  the 
stripling  who  went  forth  to  defy  Goliath  after  the  intimate 
intercourse  which  apparently  preceded  this,  when  we  are 
told  that  Saul  "  loved  greatly "  the  young  harpist  who 
stood  and  played  before  him  when  his  fits  of  gloom  and 
depression  occurred.  It  might  be  that  when  the  king  saw 
the  lightly-clad  shepherd  youth  with  his  sling  going  forth  in 
face  of  the  two  armies,  he  could  not  believe  it  possible  that 
this  could  be  David  whom  he  had  just  seen  armed  in  his 
own  breastplate,  and  therefore  in  his  astonishment  imagined 
that  a  new  champion  had  arisen.  But  this  of  course  is  only 
a  conjecture,  as  everything  must  be  which  is  concerned  with 
all   incidents  beyond  the  record.      Nothing  could   be  more 


CHAP.  I  THE  SHEPHERD  OF  BETHLEHEM  13 

picturesque  and  vivid  than  the  account  of  that  crisis  in  the 
young  hero's  life.  The  scene  was  one  of  those  narrow 
valleys  which  are  the  most  characteristic  features  of  the  land 
of  Judah.  A  few  slightly  sloping  fields  lie  on  either  bank 
of  the  stream — a  small  thread  of  water  in  a  very  broad  stony 
bed,  such  as  is  to  be  seen  constantly  in  the  East,  and  which 
travellers  who  have  not  gone  so  far  will  remember  in  Italy 
and  the  south  of  France — evidences  of  the  moment  when 
swollen  by  rain  the  little  stream  becomes  a  flood,  and  rages 
between  those  wide  banks  which  are  so  disproportionate  to 
its  usual  phase.  It  is  but  a  thread  of  water,  a  brooklet  easy 
to  step  across  during  most  of  the  year.  On  either  side  rise 
the  hills  upon  which  the  rival  armies  were  ranged,  contem- 
plating each  other  from  a  safe  distance,  neither  ready  to 
make  the  rush  into  the  comparatively  level  ground  below. 

By  winding  ways  among  the  hills,  strong  passes  here 
and  there,  and  slopes  of  pastureland,  David  had  come 
eager  and  expectant*  from  Bethlehem,  with  his  burden 
of  parched  corn  for  his  brothers,  and  home-made  cheeses 
for  a  present  to  their  captain  ;  and  one  of  the  first  things 
that  attracted  him,  eager  for  every  sign  of  battle,  would 
be  the  sight  at  which  the  two  armies  were  looking 
on,  and  which  interrupted  every  movement.  Between  the 
opposing  hosts  upon  the  bank  of  the  stream,  in  sight  of 
both,  strode  forth  the  swashbuckler,  Goliath,  daring  the 
armies  of  Israel,  a  big  man,  blazing  in  his  rich  armour 
under  the  sun,  with  the  huge  spear  in  his  hand  which  has 
been  part  of  the  equipment  of  so  many  giants  since  his  time. 
There  arc  few  things  more  apt  to  be  exaggerated  in  the  most 
exact  of  records  than  the  size  of  an  exceptionally  tall  and 
strong  champion,  and  it  is  evident  that  David  himself  was 
able  to  wield  the  giant's  sword  in  later  day.s,  so  that  it  is  not 
necessary  to  conclude  that  there  was  anything  miraculous 
about  his  great  size.  That  the  sight  of  him,  shouting  out 
his  defiance  in  the  narrow  valley,  should  have  caught  the 
attention  and  fired  the  spirit  of  young  David  with  that 
sudden  perception  of  the  opportunity  which  to  a  youth  of 
genius  and  daring  is  all  that  is  lacking,  is  the  most  natural 


14  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

incident,  as  are  also  the  impatience  and  displeasure  of  his 
elder  brothers,  no  doubt  aware  of  something  of  those  high- 
reaching  dreams  which  were  in  the  lad's  mind,  as  if  he  were 
better  than  the  others  of  his  family.  "  I  know  thy  pride 
and  the  naughtiness  of  thy  heart,"  cries  Eliab,  vexed  with 
the  lad's  eager  question,  and  seeing  the  sudden  flame  light- 
ing up  in  his  eyes  ;  "  with  whom  hast  thou  left  those  few 
sheep  in  the  wilderness  ? "  The  few  sheep  were  David's 
concern,  not  the  battles  which  were  for  his  elders  and 
betters.  The  reproach  is  as  old  as  human  nature,  and 
ready  to  be  repeated  to-day. 

David  made  no  more  reply  than  any  other  young  hero 
made  light  of  among  his  kindred.  He  took  his  way  into 
some  other  indifferent  group,  indifferent  to  himself,  wholly 
occupied  with  the  brag  of  the  Philistine  and  the  humiliation 
of  having  no  man  among  them  who  would  venture  to  meet 
him  :  and  listened  to  every  word  that  was  said.  Great  pro- 
motion and  honour,  the  king's  daughter  to  be  his  wife,  a 
place  unequalled  among  the  host  which  stood  there  over- 
awed at  the  sight  of  the  bully.  It  is  too  early  an  age  for 
love-stories,  or  it  might  be  imagined  that  David  had  already 
raised  his  eyes,  as  to  one  altogether  out  of  his  reach,  to  the 
daughter  of  Saul,  the  sister  of  Jonathan  who  loved  him. 
But  it  must  be  remembered  also  that  love  had  already 
begun  to  bear  a  part  in  the  history  of  the  Hebrews,  which 
no  other  ancient  history  has  allowed.  Jacob,  that  man  of 
riches  and  rapacity,  true  parent  of  the  grasping  Jew  of 
modern  times,  had  loved  his  Rachel  like  any  Christian 
knight,  transmitting  thus  from  the  very  dawn  of  human 
records  an  absolute  romance  such  as  never  entered  into 
the  thoughts  of  any  graceful  Greek.  But  it  would  be  trivial 
and  unnecessary  to  bring  in  such  a  notion  to  the  story  here. 
David  had  evidently  everything  to  gain,  had  there  been  no 
Michal  in  the  case  :  the  opportunity  first  of  all  of  distinguish- 
ing himself,  of  vindicating  his  nation,  of  beating  down  the 
pride  of  the  oppressor — objects  enough,  any  one  of  them,  to 
.set  a  gracious  spirit  on  fire,  not  to  speak  of  the  still  deeper 
impulse  of  a  high  indignation  against  the  heathen  braggart 


CHAP.  I  7'HE  SHEPHERD  OF  BETHLEHEM  15 

who  dared  to  set  himself  up  in  his  brute  strength  against 
the  Hving  God.  David  in  his  after  years  was  far  from  being 
a  blameless  man,  as  everybody  knows.  He  fell  under  the 
temptations  and  abused  the  privileges  of  power,  and  his 
passions  were  strong  and  unrestrained  ;  but  when  he  came 
fresh  from  those  fields  where  he  had  considered  the  heavens 
the  work  of  God's  hands,  and  where,  in  the  fervour  of  his 
youth,  he  had  felt  himself  to  be  the  object  of  a  heavenly 
care  and  love  more  deep  than  his  own  devotion  to  the  few 
sheep  in  the  wilderness,  which  yet  he  had  guarded  at  risk 
of  his  life — the  passion  of  his  young  soul  for  the  honour  of 
the  God  of  Israel,  the  living  God,  the  Lord  who  needed  not 
that  His  champion  should  bear  sword  or  spear,  was  as  a  fire 
in  his  heart.  Something  of  the  absolute  trust  which  is  more 
easy  to  youth  than  to  any  other  period  of  life,  an  almost 
braggadocio  of  self-abnegation,  generous  scorn  of  all  pre- 
caution, the  confidence  not  so  much  of  a  hero  as  of  a  child, 
is  in  his  attitude  and  equipment.  "  Who  is  this  uncircum- 
cised  Philistine?"  man  enough  to  keep  a  whole  vulgar  host 
in  dread  before  his  challenge,  and  to  fill  his  own  side  with 
arrogant  triumph,  yet  at  the  mercy  of  a  shepherd's  sling  in 
the  hand  of  a  lad  who  stood  for  God.  The  favourite  subject 
of  poetry  ever  since,  nay,  the  highest  theme  of  all  that  has 
been  sung  and  said  on  earth,  is  this  triumph  of  faith,  this 
victory  of  the  simple  and  small  over  the  proud  and  strong, 
the  humble  hero  over  embattled  hosts,  the  champion  of  the 
oppressed  over  the  oppressors.  It  is  not  to  be  found  in  any 
primitive  literature  but  that  of  the  chosen  people.  Strength 
and  valour  are  the  universal  subjects  of  the  applauses  of 
the  olden  ages,  whether  cultured  Greek  or  wild  Scandinavian. 
The  Hebrew  poet  alone  has  celebrated  that  race  which  is 
not  to  the  swift,  and  the  battle  which  is  not  to  the  strong. 

The  death  of  Goliath  threw  the  army  of  the  Philistines 
into  the  greatest  disorder  ;  the  greater  part  fled  dismayed, 
making  a  stand  Ijere  and  there,  band  by  band,  as  in  that 
spot  where  there  was  "  a  parcel  of  ground  covered  with 
barley,"  where  Eleazer  the  son  of  Dodo,  the  Ahohite,  inter- 
cepted them,  and  destroyed  that  remnant  of  the  retreating 


i6  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VID  part  i 

army.^  "  The  men  of  Israel  and  Judah  arose  and  shouted, 
and  pursued  the  PhiHstines,"  David  no  doubt,  if  not  at  the 
head,  at  least  in  the  front  rank  of  the  wild  triumphant  host, 
whose  spirit,  tamed  by  oppression,  had  suddenly  come  back, 
as  in  the  days  of  their  fathers,  at  the  touch  of  victory.  What 
the  fight  and  slaughter  must  have  been  is  shown  by  that 
unfortunate  utterance  of  popular  applause  with  which  the 
young  hero  of  the  fight  was  received  as  the  triumphant  army 
swept  and  straggled  along  towards  Gibeah,  the  headquarters 
of  Saul,  the  women  streaming  out  of  every  village  to  celebrate 
their  victory.  Not  very  long  before  the  same  rejoicing 
groups  had  come  out  upon  the  passage  of  Saul  proclaiming 
his  name  to  all  the  echoes  :  and  the  fickleness  of  that  popular 
applause,  its  ready  transfer  from  one  to  another,  came  bitterly 
to  the  knowledge  of  the  deserted  king,  as  it  has  done  to 
hundreds  since — "  Saul  has  slain  his  thousands,  and  David 
his  tens  of  thousands."  Had  there  been  no  contrast,  had 
the  shouts  been  confined  to  David's  personal  prowess,  it 
would  have  been  less  invidious  ;  but  the  comparison  went  to 
the  very  heart  of  the  leader,  whose  place  was  no  longer  the 
first  in  the  opinion  of  the  turbulent  people  so  little  accus- 
tomed as  yet  to  any  veneration  of  the  crown.  Thus  the 
star  of  David  rose  while  that  of  Saul  began  to  set. 

The  record  of  Scripture  is  sternly  impartial,  whosoever  for 
the  moment  is  its  subject.  Jacob  is  chosen  to  carry  on  the 
line  of  Israel  because,  no  doubt,  of  the  strength  and  native 
resolution  of  his  crafty  and  persistent  nature  ;  but  it  is  over 
Esau  that  our  hearts  soften  and  our  tears  fall.  In  the  same 
way  Saul,  fallen  from  his  high  estate,  cast  down  to  the  very 
depths  of  that  excitable  and  sensitive  nature  which  made  him 
so  subject  to  all  external  influences,  makes  the  heart  of  the 
reader  ache  with  pity  :  and  but  for  the  wild  chivalry  and 
generosity  which  soon  show  themselves  in  David,  would  draw 
away  our  sympathies  altogether  in  his  forlorn  and  heaven- 

1  This  feat  of  arms  M.  Renan,  rejecting  the  whole  story  of  GoHath,  states 
wildly,  on  his  own  authority,  as  the  chief  incident  in  the  encounter,  graciously, 
however,  allowing  David  to  have  fought  by  the  side  of  Eleazer.  It  is  not  certain 
that  the  incident  took  place,  indeed,  on  this  precise  occasion,  but  I  think  we  are 
justified  in  accepting  it  as  having  done  so. 


CHAP.  I  THE  SHEPHERD  OF  BETHLEHEM  17 

abandoned  kinghood,  in  his  wild  impetuous  hastiness  and  the 
mistakes  of  his  desperation,  from  that  young  and  applauded 
hero,  of  whom  it  is  said  that  all  he  did  pleased  the  people. 
David,  however,  escapes  that  un pleasing  contrast  of  the  pros- 
perous with  the  unfortunate  by  the  quickly  following  romance 
of  his  story.  In  the  next  access  of  that  partial  madness  to 
which  Saul  was  subject,  which  sometimes  showed  itself  in 
raving  utterances,  having  apparently  some  resemblance  to  the 
rapture  of  the  prophets,  David  was  called  from  his  military 
command,  as  he  had  been  called  before  from  his  shcepfold,  to 
soothe  the  distracted  king  with  music  ;  and  Saul,  in  his  insane 
excitement — not  without  method  still,  the  bitterness  of  his  soul 
breaking  through  the  mist  of  his  faculties — snatched  a  javelin 
from  the  wall,  and  flung  it  at  his  supplanter  in  the  affections  of 
his  people.  This  would  seem  to  have  been  the  first  overt  act 
of  that  dire  jealousy  which  was  part  of  the  madness,  yet  part 
of  the  anguish  too — a  passion  which  is  so  comprehensible 
and  so  piteous.  For  not  only  did  Michal  love  this  upstart 
of  the  fields,  but  Jonathan,  the  heir,  if  any  thought  of  heir- 
ship was,  and  clearly  the  beloved  son  and  constant  companion 
of  his  father,  loved  him  too,  exchanging  with  him  the  closest 
vows  of  brotherhood  and  admiring  friendship.  Thus  the 
young  supplanter  had  penetrated  into  the  very  domestic 
stronghold,  stealing  away  the  household  hearts  that  were  his 
own  from  the  unfortunate  chief 

It  is  a  contrast  full  of  all  the  elements  that  touch  the 
hearts  of  men,  and  one  cannot  but  wonder  how  the  com- 
mentators, whose  criticisms  arc  supposed  to  destroy  the 
consistency  of  these  records,  making  of  them  a  mass  of 
disjointed  scraps  put  together  to  serve  certain  purposes  of 
statecraft  by  various  hands  at  various  times,  have  been  able 
to  free  themselves  from  the  charm  and  spell  of  human 
sympathy  which  is  in  these  marvellous  narratives.  Two 
more  distinct  human  creatures  than  Saul  and  David 
never  existed,  nor  can  we  imagine  a  story  more  deeply 
moving,  more  tragically  true  to  nature.  The  great  warrior, 
now  fading  from  the  glory  of  his  youth,  never  a  man 
of  judgment,   ha.sty,   passionate,  mistaken,  unable    to   learn 

C 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID 


the  self-command  and  obey  the  restraints  that  hem  about 
the  footsteps  of  a  ruler,  yet  full  of  a  certain  primitive 
greatness,  standing  high  above  the  mass  of  ordinary  men, 
both  in  the  heyday  of  his  valour  and  the  tragedy  of  his 
despair  ;  and  modest  in  his  presence,  reverent  of  his  office, 
yet  perhaps  scarcely  capable  of  keeping  out  of  his  thoughts 
the  paeans  of  the  admiring  Israelites,  the  consciousness  already 
of  knowing  better  and  of  being  more  capable  of  rule — the 
younger  hero,  more  engaging,  more  attractive,  than  the 
moody  and  excitable  Saul  could  ever  have  been,  a  man  to 
steal  the  hearts  of  all  who  came  near  him,  young,  fortunate, 
full  of  charm.  David  made  no  mistakes  in  that  difficult 
position — almost  a  son  of  the  house,  deeply  beloved  by  some 
of  its  chief  members,  yet  hated  and  feared  by  its  head  : 
whereas  Saul's  career  had  been  full  of  mistakes,  and  he  had 
never  been  able  to  find  the  medium  between  hasty  over- 
obedience  and  wilful  transgression  of  the  commandment. 
He  must  have  seen  that  Jonathan,  with  his  heart  completely 
stolen  by  that  interloper,  would  strike  no  blow  and  make  no 
stand  for  the  kingship.  It  was  the  youth  of  Bethlehem,  the 
shepherd-lad  of  the  valley  of  Elah,  the  mere  musician  who 
had  called  forth,  as  such  menials  do,  a  certain  tribute  of  easy 
praise,  to  whom  the  eyes  of  all  men  were  turning.  To  David 
the  Ephrathite,  the  son  of  Jesse — to  him  who  had  been 
nobody  till  the  other  day,  and  was  nobody  save  as  the  king's 
favour  made  him  !  It  is  but  too  easy  to  understand  the 
exasperation,  the  keen  sense  as  of  a  useless  struggle,  yet 
fierce  determination  to  get  rid  of  and  overthrow  this  disturber 
of  his  life,  which  was  in  the  mind  of  Saul. 

And  how  full  of  life  and  nature  is  the  whole  scene  ;  the 
consultations  of  the  younger  members  of  the  household  who 
love  him  with  the  persecuted  and  threatened  David,  the 
troubled  talks  and  anxious  expedients  for  his  safety.  "  My 
father  will  do  nothing  without  showing  it  to  me,"  says  the 
unquiet  and  disturbed  Jonathan  who  "  delighted  much "  in 
his  sworn  brother  and  friend  :  and  again  and  again  the  crisis 
was  tided  over,  the  catastrophe  averted,  sometimes  by  Jona- 
than's anxious  explanations,  sometimes  by  a  new  campaign 


THE  SHE r HERD  OF  BETHLEHEM  19 


against  the  Philistines  in  which,  it  being  well  known  that 
David  would  need  no  wile  to  place  him  in  the  forefront  of  the 
battle,  the  king  might  always  hope  that  a  chance  dart  would 
deliver  him  from  his  rival.  At  last  when  the  danger  could 
be  averted  no  longer,  the  brother  and  sister  to  whom  David 
was  so  dear  had  to  take  the  matter  into  their  own  hands. 
It  was  Michal's  part  to  get  him  off  suddenly  from  the 
threatened  destruction,  letting  him  "  down  through  a  window," 
doubtless  upon  the  outer  wall,  on  the  summit  of  one  of  the 
rocky  slopes  of  Gibeah,  where  Saul's  residence  was.  While 
the  enraged  and  gloomy  king  waited  for  the  return  of  his 
messengers,  to  bring  him  news  that  all  was  over  and  the 
danger,  once  for  all,  removed  from  his  path,  David,  breathless 
with  the  sense  of  death  so  barely  escaped,  was  already  out 
of  reach  in  the  darkness  of  the  night  which  had  favoured 
his  escape,  at  last  convinced  of  the  deadly  peril  in  which  he 
stood,  and  not  knowing  where  to  find  refuge.  To  go  home 
to  Bethlehem  does  not  seem  to  have  occurred  to  him. 
Probably  he  was  not  assured  of  any  welcome  there  if  he 
arrived  suddenly,  a  fugitive  from  the  wrath  of  the  king  ; 
perhaps  even  more  likely,  for  his  father  and  mother  were 
still  living  who  could  not  have  refused  him  a  shelter,  he  was 
afraid  to  draw  upon  his  kindred  the  anger  and  vengeance  of 
Saul.  But  more  near  than  Bethlehem,  more  secure  than 
any  common  house,  there  was  the  old  prophet  at  Ramah  to 
appeal  to,  he  who  had  shown  so  much  kindness  to  David,  who 
had  refused  to  allow  the  feast  to  begin  till  the  shepherd-boy 
had  been  called,  and  who  had  kissed  and  anointed  the  ruddy 
lad  fresh  from  the  fields,  as  he  had  not  done  to  Eliab  or 
any  of  the  stalwart  brethren.  Though  I  think  it  is  quite 
clear  that  David  did  not  know  what  that  anointing  meant, 
yet  it  was  a  token  of  favour  ;  and  as  he  cast  about  in  his 
mind  where  to  turn  for  succour  the  recollection  of  Samuel 
must  have  flashed  across  his  thoughts  like  a  sudden  light. 

Nothing  more  wild  and  strange  than  the  description  of 
his  temporary  shelter  with  the  old  prophet  could  be. 
Samuel  would  seem  to  have  taken  the  fugitive  to  some 
more   secure   refuge   than    his  own  open    house   in    Ramah 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID 


where  for  years  he  had  judged  Israel,  and  which  would 
naturally  be  accessible  on  all  sides  -to  those  who  came  to 
consult  him,  and  bring  their  difficulties  to  be  solved.  It 
was  to  "  Naioth  in  Ramah,"  "  the  house  of  learning,"  that  he 
transferred  himself  and  his  guest,  no  doubt  some  secluded 
school  of  the  prophets,  where  special  instruction  and  training 
might  be  given  to  those  who  were  to  instruct  the  people. 
"  The  company  of  the  prophets  prophesying,  and  Samuel 
standing  as  appointed  over  them  " — was  the  sight  that  Saul's 
messengers  saw  when,  hot  in  their  bloody  errand,  they 
reached  this  place.  It  was  probably  what  we  should  call  the 
college  of  the  consecrated  Levite  youths,  studying  their  future 
functions  under  the  superintendence  of  the  deeply  experienced 
and  highly  gifted  old  man,  who  had  served  God  from  his 
infancy,  and  was  the  acknowledged  head  of  all  sacred  science 
in  Israel.  That  this  instruction,  however,  was  accompanied 
by  ecstatic  manifestations  now  coming  upon  one,  now  upon 
another,  would  seem  to  be  implied  in  the  strange  narratives 
that  follow. 

The  messengers,  men  of  the  sword,  soldiers  of  Saul's  irre- 
gular army,  came  suddenly,  unaware  of  what  they  were  about 
to  see,  thinking  only  of  their  fierce  commission,  into  the  midst 
of  this  wonderful  scene,  and,  excited,  overawed,  seized  by  that 
contagion  of  strange  emotion  which  the  primitive  mind  is  so 
easily  affected  by,  fell  into  a  nervous  imitation  of  what  they 
saw,  and  "  prophesied  "  also.  So  still  the  rude  recruits  of 
a  "  revivalist "  meeting  are  sometimes  affected  with  an  in- 
comprehensible yet  evidently  in  many  cases  unfeigned  con- 
vulsion of  nature  unaccustomed  to  such  strong  spiritual 
stimulants.  That  the  same  effect  should  be  produced  upon 
the  second  band,  who  saw  their  comrades  thus  weeping  and 
praying  and  calling  out  to  God,  was  perhaps  less  wonderful. 
And  when  Saul  himself  came  after  them,  fierce  and  troubled, 
his  mind  already  half-overturned  with  hate  and  terror  and 
revenge,  and  perhaps  remorse — moved  by  the  sight  of  those 
scenes  where  his  first  consecration  had  taken  place,  where  he 
had  previously  shared  the  vigils  and  the  ecstasies  of  the 
young  prophets,  the  wonder  is  still  less  that  his  impassioned 


THE  SHEPHERD  OF  BETHLEHEM 


spirit  should  have  given  way.  So  many  recollections  must 
have  risen  before  him — the  high  aims  and  resolutions  of  his 
youth,  the  self-devotion  of  which  he  must  then  have  felt 
himself  capable,  the  high  renunciation  of  everything  but  the 
service  of  God  and  the  care  of  God's  people  :  and  now  what 
was  this  erring  and  passionate  man  ?  a  king  who  had  failed 
in  his  mission,  the  anointed  of  the  Lord  turned  into  a  miser- 
able avenger  of  his  own  unworthy  quarrel,  a  would-be 
murderer,  hot  to  shed  his  neighbour's  blood.  All  these 
thoughts  must  have  overwhelmed  the  impassioned  and 
despairing  soul,  whose  hate  against  David  was  so  much 
made  up  of  a  still  deeper  sense  of  his  own  inadequacy  and 
failure.  He  had  not  seen  Samuel  since  the  day  when  he 
parted  with  him  in  anger,  after  the  death  of  Agag.  And 
here,  so  near  the  scene  where  his  future  greatness  was  first 
communicated  to  him,  now  when  that  greatness  was  so 
smirched  and  faded,  and  nothing  but  downfall  and  ruin 
before  him,  to  feel  the  eyes  of  the  prophet,  which  saw 
through  and  through  all  the  wild  and  furious  movements 
of  his  spirit,  upon  him  once  again  !  The  wild  access  of 
passion  and  trouble,  which  he  had  never  had  sufficient  self- 
control  to  restrain,  burst  upon  him  with  giant  force.  He 
tore  off  his  insignia  of  royalty,  his  garments  themselves,  and 
fell  down,  shouting  out  what  wild  movements  of  self-denun- 
ciation, of  woe  to  Israel,  of  judgment,  judgment  and  the 
wrath  of  God,  who  can  venture  to  imagine  ?  A  king  whose 
kingdom  was  passing  from  him,  a  great  warrior  overpowered 
and  outdone,  a  man  who  had  lost  all  guidance,  and  was 
stumbling  and  crashing  downward  on  the  wrong  way — and 
last  and  worst  of  all,  who  saw  and  knew  that  he  was  so 
doing  through  all  his  miserable  moods,  and  in  the  severe 
clear  shining  of  that  old  prophet's  eyes. 

David,  it  would  appear,  did  not  wait  to  see  the  issue  of 
these  strange  incidents  ;  he  went  back  hurriedly  to  Gibeah 
as  soon  as  he  saw  that  the  absence  of  his  pursuers  was  thus 
ensured  for  a  little  time,  and  hastened  to  Jonathan  his  friend 
and  brother.  "  What  have  I  done,"  he  said,  "  that  your  father 
should    seek    my   life  ? "     "  God    forbid,"  said  the  generous 


THE  HOUSE  OE  DA  VID 


young  man,  trying    even   now  to    defend    both    father   and 
friend.      "  It  is  not  so  ;  my  father  will   do  nothing  great  or 
small  without  letting  me  know  :   and  why  should  he  hide  this 
from  me  ?  "      It  would  appear  from  these  words  that  Jonathan 
had  not  been  aware  of  that  expedition  to  Ramah.      A  touch- 
ing arrangement  was  then  made  between  the  two  young  men. 
It  was  close  to  the  time  of  the  new  moon,  when   Saul  and 
all  great   men   made  feasts   for  their  households,  and  where 
David's  place  would  naturally  be  an   important  one,  both  as 
the  king's  son-in-law,  and  as  one  of  the  great  warriors  and 
captains  of  Israel.      Jonathan  consented  to  make  an  excuse 
for   David's  absence  on  this  occasion,  and   thus  to  ascertain 
the  mind  of  Saul  towards  him,  while  David,  either  secretly 
returning  to  his  own  house,  or  in   hiding  somewhere  near, 
awaited    the   issue   of  the    trial.      When   this  was    arranged 
between  them   in  some  private  place  of  meeting  Jonathan 
drew   his    friend    into    "  the    field,"  probably    near   to    some 
sacred    place,  to    give    solemnity   to   his  engagement ;    and 
there  under    the  cover   only  of  the  sky,  beyond   which,  in 
all  ages  men  have  looked  for  the  dwelling  of  God,  appealed 
to  the  Supreme  Disposer  of  events  to  ratify  the  bargain,  the 
Lord  God  of  Israel   who  knew  and  beheld  in  all  their  ways 
the  sons  of  men.      If  he  were  not  true  to   David,  did   not 
warn  him,  did   not  save  him,  "  the   Lord   do  so  and   much 
more  to  Jonathan  "  he    prayed.      If  this  story  came  to  us 
without  any  sanction  of  Holy  Writ,  if  it  were  but  part  of  the 
epic  of  a   Hebrew  Homer,  the  reader  would   need   no  such 
solemn  adjuration  to  convince  him  of  the  truth  of  Jonathan. 
There    followed    after    this    a    succession    of   the    most 
exciting   scenes.      The   king  returned  from  that  wild  pursuit 
to    Ramah,    perhaps    ashamed    of   his    passion,    perhaps    in 
the  return    of  his    sober    consciousness   feeling   it    advisable 
to   make    no    further   show   of  his    hostility  to   David,  who 
was    one    of   the    props   of   his    throne :     and    prepared    as 
usual    for   the    feast    of   the    new   moon,    himself  presiding, 
seated    "  as    at    other    times    upon    a    seat    by    the    wall," 
the  head    of   the  primitive  table,   with   Abner  by  his  side, 
his    commander-in-chief       For    the    first    day    he    took    no 


CHAP.  I  THE  SHEPHERD  OF  BETHLEHEM  23 

notice  of  David's  vacant  place  ;  but  on  the  second  demanded 
an  explanation.  "  Why  does  not  the  son  of  Jesse  come  to 
meat,  neither  yesterday  nor  to-day  ?  "  Upon  this  question, 
Jonathan  made  the  excuse  that  had  been  agreed  upon. 
There  was  a  feast  of  the  family  at  Bethlehem,  and  David's 
brother — which  looks  as  if  Eliab  was  now  head  of  the  family, 
perhaps  acting  so  on  account  of  the  age  and  weakness  of 
Jesse,  for  there  is  still  mention  of  the  father  later  on — had 
commanded  him  to  be  present.  Upon  this  Saul  burst  forth 
into  fury  upbraiding  the  folly  of  his  son.  "  Do  not  I  know 
that  thou  hast  chosen  the  son  of  Jesse  to  thine  own  con- 
fusion ? "  he  cried.  It  was  not  David,  not  the  familiar  name 
of  the  household,  the  name  too  famous  in  Israel,  which  the 
angry  king  employed,  but  that  of  the  alien  house,  the  opposed 
clan,  a  name  of  Judah  which  had  always  assumed  to  be  the 
first  in  Israel.  "  As  long  as  the  son  of  Jesse  liveth  upon 
the  ground  thou  shalt  not  be  established  nor  thy  kingdom," 
exclaims  the  king,  with  a  feeling  more  honourable  than  that 
of  his  own  fierce  enmity.  And  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
Jonathan  him.self  had  a  prevision  of  this  since  he  had  already 
appealed  to  the  time  when  David's  enemies  should  be  cut  off 
every  one  from  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  commended  his 
own  race  and  house  to  the  protection  of  the  hunted  and  per- 
secuted man.  Yet  he  stood  with  all  the  faithfulness  of  his 
nature  for  the  fugitive.  "  What  hath  he  done  ?  "  he  asked, 
while  all  the  company  sat  silent,  keenly  attentive  of  this  dis- 
cussion. But  Saul  in  the  transport  of  his  anger  and  disap- 
pointment and  fierce  incapacity  to  bear  opposition,  snatched 
a  javelin  from  the  wall  behind  him,  and  flung  it  at  his  son, 
as  he  had  before  done  at  the  object  of  their  quarrel.  It 
became  evident  that  no  more  was  to  be  said,  nor  the  name 
of  David  named  again  in  that  primitive  court,  where  it  would 
appear  no  voice  was  raised  for  the  ambitious  young  captain 
but  that  of  the  heir  alone. 

The  reader's  heart  goes  with  Jonathan,  as  so  often  in 
these  records.  Saul  and  David  are  the  chief  figures  in  the 
struggle,  one  with  the  painful  crown  of  tragedy,  the  other 
the  laurels  and  the  pa;ans  of  success.      But  between   them 


24  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  parti 

Stands  the  noble  young  man,  fated  to  share  the  sorrow  and 
punishment  which  he  had  no  hand  in  incurring,  his  sympathy 
all  with  the  persecuted,  his  duty  all  with  the  persecutor,  his 
love  divided  between  them  who  were  so  fiercely  separated 
from  each  other.  It  would  seem  that  there  had  been  in 
other  matters  a  special  closeness  of  union  between  Saul  and 
his  firstborn.  They  are  named  together  in  all  the  first 
campaigns  of  the  reign  before  David  comes  upon  the  scene, 
Jonathan  like  a  young  knight -adventurer,  a  gallant  heir- 
apparent,  performing  rash  feats  in  which 

Desperate  valour  oft  made  good. 
Oft  with  its  daring  vantage  rude 

Where  prudence  might  have  failed." 

"  My  father  will  do  nothing  great  or  small  that  he  does 
not  let  me  know,"  Jonathan  himself  says  ;  and  "  that  they 
were  lovely  and  pleasant  in  their  lives,"  almost  like  twin 
brothers  rather  than  father  and  son,  is  the  testimony  given 
afterwards.  And  no  sign  of  failure  from  his  father's  side 
is  ever  recorded  of  Jonathan,  though  he  would  seem  to  have 
accepted  the  signs  of  fate,  and  foreseen  the  triumph  of  the 
other  who  was  his  natural  enemy  and  supplanter  yet  his 
most  beloved  friend.  The  situation  is  one  that  calls  forth 
every  sympathy  and  makes  of  this  pure  and  chivalrous 
figure  the  highest  light  in  the  wonderful  picture.  Jonathan 
went  forth  sad  and  angry,  with  that  wrath  of  love  that 
"  works  like  madness  in  the  brain,"  as  soon  as  the  morning 
dawned  after  this  troublous  scene,  and  took  down  his  bow 
from  the  wall,  and  called  a  boy  from  among  the  many 
retainers  to  go  with  him,  striding  forth  with  a  clouded  brow, 
as  all  would  understand,  to  divert  his  troubled  mind  with  a 
favourite  exercise.  "  The  field "  in  which  these  meetinrrs 
took  place  must  have  been  some  sheltered  spot,  some  hollow 
on  the  other  side  of  the  hill,  where  there  were  rocks  and 
caves,  such  as  abound  everywhere  in  Palestine,  in  which  a 
fugitive  could  be  hid  ;  for  it  would  seem  that  all  this  time 
David  had  been  lurking  near,  no  doubt  in  one  of  these 
caves.      There  Jonathan   shot   his    arrows   according  to  the 


CHAP.  I  rilE  SHEPHERD  OF  BETHLEHEM  25 

sign  agreed  upon,  and  perhaps  with  some  show  of  impati- 
ence not  to  have  hit  a  desired  mark,  gave  his  bow  to  his 
attendant  as  soon  as  the  arrows  had  been  gathered  up,  and 
sent  him  hastily  home.  When  the  lad  had  disappeared 
the  hidden  fugitive  stole  forth  into  the  dewy  field.  It  was 
morning,  all  still  and  solitary,  before  life  or  work  had  begun. 
These  strange  new  circumstance.s,  and  perhaps  his  melan- 
choly vigil,  and  the  sense  that  his  life  was  in  the  hands  of 
this  generous  young  prince  who  had  adopted  him  as  his 
brother,  brought  home,  no  doubt,  to  David  the  wonderful 
difference  between  himself,  a  homeless  fugitive,  and  the  son 
of  Saul  the  king.  He  bowed  himself  three  times  to  the 
ground,  falling  on  his  face,  in  all  the  abasement  of  Eastern 
reverence.  He  was  no  longer  the  great  captain,  the  husband 
of  Michal,  the  honoured  of  Israel,  but  once  more  the  son 
of  Jesse,  youngest  and  least  important,  the  shepherd  of  his 
humble  family,  of  little  account  even  in  his  own  tribe,  how 
much  less  here  among  the  cities  of  Benjamin.  But  when 
the  friends  met  all  these  artificial  distinctions  would  seem 
to  have  been  swept  away,  and  Jonathan  and  David  kissed 
each  other  and  wept.  It  was  as  if  the  friendly  earth,  upon 
which  their  young  swift  steps  had  gone  together  on  many 
an  errand  both  of  war  and  peace,  had  been  rent  between 
them.  Few  words  were  needed,  if  any  :  the  abyss  was  not 
one  which  could  be  bridged  over  with  hopeful  speech  of 
better  days  and  other  meetings.  They  were  silent  in  the 
rending  asunder  of  their  lives.  "  Go  in  peace ;  and  the 
Lord  be  witness  of  that  which  is  between  me  and  thee," 
was  all  that  Jonathan  could  say.  "  They  wept  one  with 
another  till  David  exceeded."  The  fugitive,  the  poet,  the 
man  of  quick  emotions,  lost  his  self-control  in  the  misery 
of  his  banishment :  while  Jonathan,  perhaps  still  more  deeply 
sad,  without  that  power  of  self-expression,  turned  back  with 
a  heavy  heart  to  the  city,  where  he  had  to  put  on  a  face  of 
stone,  and  know  nothing  of  David  any  more. 

While  he  lay  thus  forsaken  in  his  cave  during  the  three 
days  that  must  have  elapsed  between  these  interviews, 
reflecting  with  all  the  intensity  of  his  youth  upon  his  home 


26  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D 


SO  near  yet  so  far  away  from  him,  on  Michal  anxious  in  her 
soHtary  chamber,  and  Jonathan  more  anxious  still  amid  the 
laughter  and  mirth  at  his  father's  table — seeing  most  likely 
from  his  refuge  the  lights  of  the  little  city  on  the  hill,  hear- 
ing the  shouts  of  the  festivity,  himself  fasting,  deserted,  in 
danger  of  his  life,  was  it  with  such  a  strain  as  this  that  he 
consoled  himself,  his  courage  as  yet  unbroken  though  his 
heart  was  sore  ? 

In  the  Lord  put  I  my  trust : 

How  say  ye  then  to  my  soul. 

That  she  should  flee  as  a  bird  to  the  hill  ? 

For,  lo,  the  ungodly  bend  their  bow, 

They  make  ready  their  arrow  upon  the  string, 

To  shoot  privily  at  them  that  are  true  of  heart. 

The  Lord  is  in  His  holy  temple. 

The  Lord's  seat  is  in  heaven  : 

His  eyes  behold,  His  eyelids  try,  the  children  of  men. 

The  Lord  trieth  the  righteous  : 

But  the  ungodly  and  him  that  loveth  wickedness 

Doth  His  soul  abhor. 

For  the  righteous  Lord  loveth  righteousness  ; 
His  countenance  will  behold 
The  thing  that  is  just. 

To  most  minds  the  constant  reference  of  the  Psalmist  to 
his  enemies  is  a  continued  jar  and  discord  :  but  it  would  be 
strange  indeed  if  David  in  his  hunted  life,  never  from  this 
time  allowed  a  moment  of  rest,  should  have  left  out  of  the 
songs  by  which  he  encouraged  his  own  heart  amid  all  his 
troubles,  any  allusion  to  his  persecutors.  This  Psalm,  prob- 
ably the  first  of  these  utterances  of  his  soul  in  trouble,  is 
purely  abstract  in  its  reference  to  them.  They  are  the 
ungodly  abhorred  by  God  because  they  work  wickedness, 
and  upon  whom  He  rains  snows,  fire  and  brimstone,  storm 
and  tempest.  The  fugitive,  the  sufferer,  calls  down  no 
curses  on  his  own  account  out  of  the  patient  skies. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    OUTLAW    IN    THE    WILDERNESS 

This  was  the  beginning  of  the  most  ^painful  portion  of 
David's  life  :  that  probation  in  the  wilderness  which  is  the 
portion  of  most  men  who  are  destined  to  greatness.  He 
stole  away  from  the  neighbourhood  of  Gibeah,  from  all  his 
brief  prosperity  and  happiness,  from  his  position  as  com- 
mander at  once  and  minstrel,  prince  and  poet,  the  favourite 
and  the  hero,  whom  the  people  loved  :  the  companion  of 
Jonathan,  the  husband  of  Michal :  now  a  fugitive  far  more  poor 
and  solitary  than  ever  could  have  been  the  shepherd-boy 
who  had  come  so  suddenly  to  all  those  distinctions.  It  was 
probably  by  night  that  he  left  the  neighbourhood  of  Gibeah, 
escaping  through  the  silent  fields,  with  none  of  that  noble 
retinue  which  was  his  due  as  a  leader  of  Israel,  yet  probably 
a  faithful  retainer  or  two  sadly  following  his  uncertain  steps 
across  the  wilds,  without  provisions,  without  arms,  not 
knowing  where  he  went,  travelling  vaguely  towards  the 
south. 

The  first  place  to  which  he  came  was  Nob,  where  it  is 
apparent  there  was  at  that  time  a  sanctuary  and  centre  of 
worship,  though  in  the  confusion  of  the  period  it  is  diflficult  to 
know  precisely  what  this  means.  The  geography  is  confused 
as  well  as  the  economy  of  the  disturbed  and  unsettled  land, 
still  overrun  with  continual  raids  of  the  hostile  races  which 
surrounded  Israel  on  every  side,  and  with  no  established 
centre  of  authority  either  secular  or  sacred.  For  Saul's 
headquarters  at  Gibeah  were  no  more  a  royal  capital  than 


28  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VID  part  i 

the  dwellings  from  which  the  judges  who  preceded  him 
had  partially  and  confusedly  ruled  the  people,  each  in 
his  own  house.  And  neither  the  ancient  tabernacle  of 
the  wilderness  which  was  at  Gilead,  nor  the  temporary 
re-establishment  of  the  Ark  at  Kirjath-Jearim  (the  latter, 
it  would  seem,  entirely  fallen  into  forgetfulness),  had 
been  received  as  a  national  shrine  :  each  tribe  or  district 
forming,  as  it  would  seem,  their  own  religious  centre  for 
themselves  with  as  much  of  the  established  ritual  as  was 
within  their  power.  David  arrived  faint  and  weary  at  the 
house  of  the  priest,  answering  to  the  astonished  question 
of  how  he  came  to  be  alone,  i.e.  with  no  formal  retinue,  by 
the  excuse  of  a  sudden  commission  and  urgent  business 
for  the  king,  which  had  compelled  him  to  leave  home 
without  aide-de-camp  or  officer,  even  without  his  weapons. 
"  Give  me  some  bread,"  he  asked  ;  "  whatever  you  may  have." 
But  the  priest  had  no  bread  except  the  sacred  shewbread 
which  he  had  just  taken  from  the  altar,  and  which  was  to 
be  eaten  by  the  Levites  alone. 

It  must  thus  have  been  on  the  Sabbath  that  David, 
fasting  and  faint,  arrived  at  the  sanctuary ;  for  it  was 
on  the  Sabbath  that  the  loaves  or  cakes  of  the  hal- 
lowed bread  were  replaced  by  new,  and  removed  from  the 
holy  table.  The  analogy  was  therefore  doubly  complete 
between  this  and  the  incident  in  the  life  of  our  Lord  to 
which  He  Himself  compared  it.  Neither  the  priest  nor 
David  seems  to  have  entertained  any  Pharisaical  hesitations 
on  the  subject,  mercy  and  succour  having  been  at  all  times 
recognised  as  of  first  necessity  even  under  the  bonds  of  the 
Jewish  law.  When  he  had  secured  for  himself  and  "  the 
young  men"  that  needful  food,  David  asked  if  there  were 
any  weapons  in  the  peaceful  shrine  ;  and  it  must  have  been 
a  great  encouragement  to  his  soul  when  the  priest  drew  forth 
out  of  its  wrappings  no  other  than  the  sword  of  Goliath, 
"  whom  thou  slewest  in  the  valley  of  Elah."  It  must  have 
been  as  if  God  Himself  had  thus  laid  up  in  store  for  him  the 
weapon  to  which  no  man  had  so  clear  a  right — the  sign  of 
his   first  and   greatest  victory.      "  There   is   none    like  that  ; 


THE  OUTLA IV  IN  THE  WILDERNESS  29 


give  it  to  me,"  he  said,  with  a  fervency  of  utterance  in  which 
we  can  fully  sympathise. 

It  is  less  easy,  however,  to  understand  after  this  sign, 
which  must,  one  wouFd  suppose,  have  appealed  to  his  imagi- 
native nature  by  every  argument  of  encouragement,  how  he 
should  have  gone  to  Gath  girded  with  the  very  sword  of 
their  champion  to  seek  refuge  among  the  enemies  of  Israel. 
Perhaps  in  the  bitterness  of  his  soul  and  the  extravagant 
despondency  of  the  first  misfortunes  of  youth,  he  took  it  for 
a  sign  that  he  was  cut  off  from  Israel,  and  had  no  resource 
left  but  to  throw  himself  among  an  alien  people :  perhaps 
the  very  sight  of  it  suggested  the  hostile  city  whose  chief 
enemy  was  the  same  Saul  who  had  cast  out  and  was  pursuing 
himself  And  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  believe  that,  notwith- 
standing the  persistent  national  hatred,  there  should  not  have 
been  private  ties  between  individuals  of  the  two  races  so 
near  together  within  the  narrow  boundaries  of  Palestine. 
Thus  Scots  and  English  in  the  old  fighting  days,  though 
nationally  the  deadliest  enemies,  yet  found  friends,  brides, 
and  husbands  among  the  hostile  race,  and  took  refuge  when 
in  disgrace  at  home  in  the  court  of  the  other  kingdom, 
always  bland  and  complaisant  to  the  fugitive,  proving  in  its 
courtesy  how  much  better  worth  serving  it  was  than  that 
from  which  he  had  come.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  the  flight  to  Achish  was  more  than  the  flight  to  an  early 
James  or  Henry  of  a  discontented  or  injured  baron  on  either 
side. 

But  terror  was  in  the  soul  of  the  fugitive.  He  found 
threatening  faces  about  him  from  the  moment  he  entered 
the  foreign  city,  which  was  not  wonderful  considering 
what  his  achievements  had  been.  He  was  like  Corio- 
lanus  in  Corioli,  a  man  who  had  gained  his  name  at  the 
expense  of  those  whose  succour  he  sought ;  and  it  was 
soon  apparent  to  him  that  safety  was  not  to  be  found 
there.  Perhaps  he  had  hoped  that  he  would  not  be  recog- 
nised, but  might  pass  as  a  mere  Hebrew  refugee  in  trouble 
with  his  own  people,  seeking  service  in  the  neighbouring 
court.      But  he  soon   became  aware  that  a  soldier  so  dis- 


30  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VID  part  i 

tinguished  could  not  remain  unknown.  "  Is  not  this  David  ?" 
said  the  very  first  ofificials  to  whom  he  addressed  himself, 
"  David  the  king  of  the  land  ?  did  they  not  sing  one  to  another 
of  him  in  dances,  Saul  has  slain  his  thousands,  and  David  his 
tens  of  thousands  ?  "  Before  even  the  news  was  carried  to 
Achish  of  this  visitor  whose  appearance  created  so  much  com- 
motion, David  had  begun  to  perceive  how  great  a  mistake 
he  had  made.  The  wonder,  which  was  so  ready  to  turn  into 
a  menace,  as  they  hurried  him  to  the  king's  presence,  showed 
him  his  danger  ;  and  though  the  expedient  of  feigning  mad- 
ness was  not  a  dignified  one,  it  was  not  unusual  in  the  East. 
When  Achish,  eager  to  see  the  newcomer,  but  perceiving  as 
he  thought  a  mere  maniac,  turned  upon  those  who  had 
excited  his  curiosity  and  alarm,  scornfully  with  the  question, 
"  Have  I  need  of  mad  men,  that  ye  have  brought  this  fellow 
into  my  house  ?  "  the  fugitive  does  not  seem  to  have  lost  a 
moment  in  making  his  escape. 

What  was  he  to  do,  driven  out  at  once  from  Israel  and 
from  Israel's  enemies  ?  No  doubt  it  was  hard  for  the  young 
man  to  throw  himself  into  the  life  of  an  outlaw,  to  lurk  in 
caves  and  desert  places,  to  snatch  a  painful  living  from  those 
who  were  weaker  than  himself  The  son  of  a  plentiful 
householder,  of  honest  and  well-known  folk,  who  had  probably 
known  what  it  was  to  suffer  from  the  incursions  of  such 
wanderers,  it  might  have  appeared  to  him  a  better  way  to  join 
the  enemy  as  Coriolanus  did,  to  be  able  to  enforce  terms 
upon  his  old  persecutor,  than  to  become  in  his  turn  a  perse- 
cutor of  the  peaceful  dwellers  in  the  land,  with  whom  all 
his  sympathies  were.  But  David  had  now  no  resource.  He 
went  back  from  Gath  towards  his  own  country  again,  a 
troubled  and  discouraged  soul,  the  few  retainers  who  had 
followed  him  drooping  their  crests  as  they  toiled  along  the 
plain,  until  they  reached  that  strange  and  wild  district  lying 
between  the  country  of  the  Jebusites,  the  as  yet  unknown 
Jerusalem,  and  the  Dead  Sea,  where  the  soft  rock  of  the 
limestone  hills,  gray  and  gloomy,  is  hollowed  out  into 
numberless  caves  enough  to  give  such  lodging  as  was 
sufficient  for  their  primitive  necessities,  to  many  men. 


CHAP,  n  THE  OUTLAW  IN  THE  WILDERNESS  33 

The  wonderful  impartiality  ^  of  these  biographies  which 
form  the  Scriptural  record  was  never  more  evident  than  in 
the  description  of  the  troop  which  gathered  here  about  the 
exile.  Had  the  story  been  of  the  Middle  Ages — and  it  is  of 
those  daring  and  chivalrous  times  that  we  are  most  reminded 
by  the  varied  and  endless  adventures  of  this  wandering 
paladin — an  air  of  romance  would  have  been  thrown  even 
upon  his  surroundings.  Knights  full  of  devotion  to  the 
bravest  among  them,  casting  in  their  lot  with  him,  re- 
solved if  need  were  to  die  with  him,  would  have  formed 
a  circle  round  the  hero.  And  that  there  was  such  a 
circle  round  David  is  clear.  His  "  three  mighties,"  and  the 
thirty  who  were  also  examples  of  valour,  though  not  so 
distinguished  as  the  first  three,  the  captains  of  his  army 
in  later  days,  when  it  was  the  legitimate  army  of  Israel 
— were  about  him  from  the  beginning  of  his  wanderings. 
But  the  account  of  his  band,  though  picturesque  and 
graphic,  has  no  false  halo  of  romance.  "  Every  one  that 
was  in  distress,  and  every  one  that  was  in  debt  (pursued 
by  his  creditors),  and  every  one  that  was  discontented, 
gathered  themselves  unto  him."  The  company  of  those 
broken  men  reached  to  the  number  of  four  hundred,  some 
of  them  escaped  from  justice,  many  of  them  "  bitter  of 
soul  " — a  band  of  refugees  dangerous  to  any  country.  The 
thirty  or  thirty-three  heroes  are  not  even  mentioned  in  the 
official  record,  though  probably  they  too  were  men  with 
grievances  like  the  rest. 

A  more  respectable  contingent  was  brought  by  the  arrival 
of  his  brethren  and  kindred,  probably  driven  out  from  Beth- 
lehem either  by  some  actual  attempt  on  the  part  of  Saul,  or 
terror  of  what  he  might  do,  and  including  such  formidable 
elements  as  his  three  nephews,  the  sons  of  that  unknown  but 
evidently  high-spirited  mother  in  Israel,  whose  name  remained 
to  David    the   characteristic   designation    of  her   still    more 

•  M.  Renan,  by  means  of  those  private  sources  of  information  which  he 
evidently  possesses  unknown  to  the  world,  informs  us  that  these  details  were 
probably  taken  from  David's  own  accounts  in  later  life,  a  sort  of  oHicial  narrative, 
such  as  he  wished  to  have  received  in  his  own  favour — whiclnnakes  the  imparti- 
ality more  remarkable  still. 

D 


34  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

dangerous  sons.  The  silent  caves,  with  their  far-stretching 
branches  running  deep  into  the  entrails  of  the  hills,  suddenly 
filled  in  every  corner  with  dark  warriors,  and  murmurous 
with  the  hum  of  a  crowd,  form  a  wild  and  wonderful  scene. 
These  fastnesses  of  nature  were  in  no  way  so  inharmonious 
with  the  habits  of  the  Hebrews  as  they  would  have  been 
even  with  those  of  the  wildest  mediaeval  troop  in  the 
different  climate  of  the  North.  A  cave  was  the  familiar 
and  most  secure  nucleus  of  the  homestead  on  many  a  plea- 
sant hillside,  the  coolest  and  the  safest.  The  darkness  did 
not  discourage  them,  accustomed  as  they  were  to  seek  refuge 
there  from  the  glare  of  day.  Each  man  would  bring  with 
him  for  as  long  as  it  lasted  his  easily  carried  provision  of 
parched  corn,  his  cakes  of  bread  and  handful  of  fruit. 
There  would  need  no  hecatombs  of  slain  cattle  to  maintain 
these  eastern  warriors  :  yet  many  a  raid  must  have  gone  out 
from  the  stronghold  of  Adullam,  to  keep  four  hundred  men 
alive — raids,  however,  in  which  the  prey  carried  off  was  prob- 
ably stores  of  bread,  raisins,  and  figs  and  parched  corn, 
as  in  the  story  of  Nabal,  with  an  occasional  sheep,  rather 
than  the  "  lifted "  cattle  and  utter  desolation  left  behind 
them  of  modern  reivers,  a  much  less  destructive  kind  of 
plunder.  There  must  have  been  wild  animals  in  those  wild 
regions  to  make  a  substantial  addition  to  the  fare  of  the 
exiles.  It  is  pleasant  to  find  in  this  record  of  a  wild  and 
lawless  episode  that  the  outlaw  of  Adullam  took  pains  to 
secure  a  safe  shelter  for  his  father  and  mother  in  Moab, 
where  there  would  still  be  kindred  on  the  side  of  Ruth  to 
welcome  her  descendants. 

Another  addition  to  the  numbers  of  this  wild  band,  which 
must  have  been  of  the  greatest  importance  to  its  prestige  and 
character,  soon  followed  in  the  person  of  Abiathar,  the  son  and 
successor  of  the  priest  Ahimelech,  who  had  received  David 
so  kindly  at  Nob,  and  whom  Saul,  on  the  malicious  report  of 
Doeg  the  Edomite,  had  sent  for  with  all  his  family  to  Gibeah, 
and  massacred,  his  own  followers  refusing  the  office,  by  that 
miscreant's  hand.  The  young  priest  who  thus,  in  terror 
of   his   life,  took   refuge  with   the  outlaws,  brought  to  them 


CHAP.  II  THE  OUTLAW  IN  THE  WILDERNESS  35 

the  appointed  order  of  national  worship  and  the  permitted 
method  of  "enquiring  of  the  Lord,"  whatever  that  may 
have  been  ;  and  no  doubt  by  his  very  presence  put  many 
scruples,  in  no  bosom  more  strong  than  in  that  of  the 
leader  of  the  band,  at  rest.  But  not  for  a  moment  did 
the  pursuit  of  Saul  relax.  He  had  justification  now  for 
all  the  rigour  of  persecution.  David,  though  he  had  set 
up  no  organised  rebellion,  no  attempt  upon  the  crown, 
was  yet  in  arms,  in  self-defence,  no  more  to  be  dealt  with 
as  an  individual.  Though  he  had  been  driven  to  it  by  the 
force  of  circumstances,  and  though  he  never  raised  his  arm 
in  offensive  hostilities,  not  even  Jonathan,  who  loved  him, 
could  plead  now  as  in  former  times  for  the  pardon  of  the 
misguided  brother.  Once  again  indeed  that  faithful  friend 
came  to  him  in  the  wilds  where  he  had  taken  refuge,  to 
warn  him  of  renewed  pursuit,  and  to  repeat  the  covenant 
or  oath  of  brotherhood  between  them  :  but  after  this  hurried 
and  secret  meeting  these  two  friends  saw  each  other  no 
more. 

While  shifting  from  one  stronghold  to  another,  from 
cave  to  forest,  "  in  the  hold "  of  those  natural  fastnesses, 
David  had  the  opportunity  of  delivering  the  town  of  Keilah 
from  the  Philistines,  a  piece  of  legitimate  work  which  must 
have  delighted  his  soul,  but  to  which  it  would  seem  his 
followers,  demoralised  by  continual  flight  and  that  sense 
of  being  hunted  like  wild  beasts,  which  destroys  at  once 
courage  and  self-respect,  were  averse,  afraid  of  trusting 
themselves  in  the  low  country  and  having  little  confidence 
in  the  gratitude  of  men,  a  scepticism  afterwards  fully  justi- 
fied. Their  leader  insisted,  however,  encouraged  by  the 
promise  of  success  from  God,  which  must  have  been  ob- 
tained by  some  dream  or  spiritual  consciousness  alone, 
since  Abiathar,  it  would  appear,  only  joined  him  with  the 
ephod  and  recognised  means  of  spiritual  communication 
after  the  deliverance  of  the  city.  For  what  reason  except 
the  generous  one  of  delivering  the  oppressed  town  and  aim- 
ing a  blow  at  the  acknowledged  enemies  of  his  people,  or 
the  astute  one  of  thus  securing   to   himself  friends  and   a 


36  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

refuge,  David  should  have  interposed  in  this  matter,  which 
of  course  was  the  business  of  the  legal  defenders  of  Israel, 
it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine.  If  it  was  the  latter  argu- 
ment which  moved  him,  he  was  soon  destined  to  discover 
how  futile  was  any  such  trust.  King  Saul,  who  had  not 
stirred  to  rescue  the  city,  heard  with  delight  that  David  had 
ventured  into  "  a  town  that  hath  gates  and  bars,"  and  at 
once  gathered  together  his  followers  to  besiege  the  rebel, 
concluding  with  premature  triumph  that  "  the  Lord  hath 
delivered  him  into  my  hands "  ;  not  so  quickly,  however, 
but  that  David  had  time  to  escape,  having  first  assured 
himself  that  Keilah  had  no  mind  to  stand  a  siege  on  his 
behalf  We  may  well  imagine  that  the  addition  of  six 
hundred  outlaws  (to  which  number  the  band  had  now  in- 
creased), with  the  wildness  of  their  wandering  life  about 
them,  to  feed  and  lodge,  could  not  be  an  agreeable  element 
in  the  life  of  the  crowded  hillside  town,  and  acknowledge  that 
the  men  of  Keilah  had  some  excuse  for  desiring  to  be  rid 
of  them.  The  harassed  exile  had  nothing  to  do  but  to 
return  to  the  wilderness,  and  once  more  take  refuge  in  the 
caves  and  woods.  The  area  of  his  wanderings  is  but  a 
limited  one,  and  indeed  it  is  almost  inconceivable  how 
small  the  limits  are,  altogether,  of  this  w^onderful  country 
so  full  of  story  and  recollection  and  influence  on  the  world. 
The  inhabitants  settled  on  the  borders  of  those  desert  tracts 
were  evidently  in  greater  sympathy  with  Saul  than  with 
David,  whose  bands  of  hungry  men,  with  neither  fields  nor 
pastures  of  their  own  by  which  to  live,  must  have  been  a 
perpetual  danger  to  their  peaceful  neighbours. 

An  instance  of  their  dealings  with  these  temporary 
neighbours  is  to  be  found  in  the  story  of  Nabal,  a  true 
Eastern  romance,  picturesque  and  vivid.  The  rich  niggard 
of  the  fields  was  celebrating  his  feast  of  sheep-shearing, 
when  David's  messengers,  "  the  young  men  "  so  often  de- 
scribed, approached  him  with  Eastern  courtesy.  Their 
desire  for  a  share  of  the  good  things  of  the  feast  was  less 
a  petition  than  an  inference :  "  Thy  shepherds  were  with 
us  and  we  hurt  them   not,  nor  was  anything  missing  unto 


CHAP.  II  THE  OUTLAW  IN  THE  WILDERNESS  37 

them  all  the  time  they  were  in  Carmcl.  Therefore  let  the 
young  men  find  favour  in  thy  sight."  Nabal  replied  to 
them  with  taunts  and  injuries.  "  There  be  many  servants 
that  break  away  from  their  masters,"  he  said.  "  Who  is 
this  David  ?  this  son  of  Jesse  ?  "  One  asks  one's  self  whether 
David  expected  this  defiance  and  insult,  and  thus  meant  to 
justify  himself  for  the  destruction  of  Nabal,  and  absorption 
of  all  his  wealth.  This  at  least  was  the  effect  upon  him  of 
the  rash  and  contemptuous  message.  He  called  his  six 
hundred  desperadoes  together  to  avenge  the  insult  and  take 
the  spoil,  an  enterprise  that  could  not  but  be  agreeable, 
faring  sparely  as  they  were  in  their  desert  fastnesses,  with 
no  joys  of  sheep-shearing,  no  new  moon  festivals,  in  their 
way. 

The  alarm  of  the  peaceful  herdsmen,  when  in  the  midst 
of  their  feast  they  heard  their  master's  insulting  reply  to 
the  "  young  men  "  with  their  spears  and  swords,  is  easy  to 
imagine.  To  have  that  horde  brought  down  upon  them, 
unarmed  and  unprepared  as  they  were,  simple  agriculturists 
and  shepherds,  was  a  sentence  of  destruction  to  every  harm- 
less soul  among  them.  And  the  master  was  such  a  son  of 
Belial  that  no  one  dared  speak  to  him.  So  while  he 
bragged  and  plumed  himself,  not  perhaps  without  a  secret 
misgiving  now  that  the  deed  was  done,  the  dependants, 
who  would  be  the  first  to  suffer,  sought  the  women's 
quarter  where  their  wiser  mistress  was  superintending  the 
feast.  "  They  were  a  wall  to  us  both  by  day  and  by  night," 
they  cried  in  their  consternation.  The  reader  knows  what 
the  rural  lady  of  some  three  thousand  years  ago,  the  rich 
farmer's  wife  of  the  Judean  valleys,  did  :  she  took  a  plentiful 
supply  of  the  provisions  of  the  great  pastoral  establishment, 
leaving,  one  would  fear,  but  little  for  the  disappointed  sheep- 
shearers  thus  forced  to  redeem  their  lives  at  the  cost  of  their 
feast — "  two  hundred  loaves,  and  two  bottles  of  wine  "  (skins 
no  doubt  like  those  in  the  grotesque  blunted  shape  of  the 
animal  to  which  they  belonged,  which  are  still  employed  by 
the  watersellers  about  the  streets  of  Syrian  cities),  "  five  sheep 
ready  dressed,  and  five  measures  of  parched  corn,"  besides  a 


38  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VID  tart  i 

liberal  supply  of  fruit.  Abigail  was  not  a  moment  too  soon  ; 
she  met  David  and  his  men  "  by  the  covert  of  the  hill  "  in 
warlike  array  with  their  swords  girded  on  them,  coming 
swiftly  on  to  execute  judgment.  The  record  does  not  say 
as  it  does  on  so  many  occasions  that  Abigail  was  beautiful, 
but  only  that  she  was  wise,  and  as  is  evident,  possessed  the 
gift  of  eloquent  words.  She  acknowledged  with  the  fulness 
of  conjugal  certainty  and  indignation  her  hu.sband's  folly, 
and  also  set  before  David  the  extreme  inexpediency  on 
his  own  part,  with  the  future  that  lay  before  him,  of 
making  enemies  or  leaving  memories  that  might  be  brought 
up  against  him — so  powerfully  that  his  hasty  wrath  was 
quenched.  It  will  be  remarked  that  the  offering  made 
was  not  of  a  kind  to  impoverish  permanently  any  great 
house  :  it  was  the  product  of  the  wealthy  establishment,  not 
its  property  or  means  of  sustenance,  a  gift  which  probably 
made  the  feast  a  poor  one  for  the  revellers  but  imposed 
distress  or  destruction  upon  none. 

The  end  of  the  story,  the  death  of  Nabal,  turned  to 
stone  by  the  tremendous  risk  he  had  run,  and  the  conviction 
of  his  danger  and  his  folly  ;  and  the  reception  of  Abigail  into 
that  harem,  in  which  David  it  must  be  allowed  did  not  stint 
himself,  reads  like  pure  romance  ;  but  so  indeed  do  many 
incidents  in  the  most  sober  life. 

There  are  two  other  episodes  in  the  tale  of  the  wander- 
ings of  David  to  which  we  could  understand  the  critics' 
objection,  had  it  been  possible  to  conceive  that  they  were 
foisted  into  the  record  in  the  days  of  Froissart,  in  the 
thirteenth  or  fourteenth  century.  But  as  the  most  scathing 
criticism  ventures  on  nothing  worse  than  the  suggestion 
that  David's  history  was  written  some  hundreds  of  years 
after  David,  and  acknowledges  that  everything  that  savours 
at  all  either  of  the  supernatural  or  romantic  must  have 
been  introduced  into  it  in  the  days  of  the  Jewish  kings,  we 
are  but  strengthened  in  our  conviction  that  the  easiest 
explanation  of  these  wonderful  talcs  is  that  fact  which 
is  much  stranger  than  fiction.  No  one  in  Homer,  who 
was    a  later  writer  even  than  the    scribes    of    the    days   of 


CHAP.  II  THE  OUTLAW  IN  THE  WILDERNESS  39 

Hezekiah,  which  these  writers  have  selected  as  the  age  when 
Hebrew  genius  developed,  had  any  conception  of  such 
chivalry  as  that  of  the  Jewish  outlaw  in  the  wilderness, 
when  he  cut  off  the  skirt  of  his  enemy's  mantle  and  let  the 
enemy  himself  go  free — or  when  he  penetrated  into  Saul's 
camp  in  the  depths  of  night  and  brought  away  the  spear 
that  was  planted  by  his  bedside,  but  aimed  no  blow  at  him- 
self lying  there  unprotected  in  his  sleep.  These  are  actions 
which  would  have  become  the  blameless  I^ayard,  which  Sir 
Lancelot  or  Sir  Galahad  might  have  performed.  But  who 
should  have  suggested  them  to  the  Hebrew  scribe,  what 
could  have  made  them  possible  to  the  exile  of  Judah  in  his 
hard  struggle  for  life  ?  This  mystery  is  one  which  no  learned 
savant  pretends  to  explain  ;  it  is  far  more  wonderful  than 
any  arithmetical  discussion  of  the  numbers  of  the  Israelites 
or  other  such  highly  important  question.  That  numerals 
should  change  and  be  altered  in  the  process  of  time  and  the 
multitude  of  transcriptions  is  likely  enough.  But  who  put 
such  a  thought  into  the  mind  of  a  Hebrew  writer  before 
chivalry  had  any  existence  ?  All  the  learning  in  the  world 
will  not  clear  up  this.  Hebrew  accents  and  Chaldean  idioms 
may  occupy  the  learned  philologist  for  ever  if  he  will,  but 
will  never  make  him  aware  how  it  was  that  in  this  primitive 
age  a  story  worthy  of  the  most  magnanimous  Christian 
chivalry  could  find  a  place  —  or  more  wonderful  still  be 
invented,  where  no  code  of  manners  or  of  morals  existed  to 
make  such  an  incident  possible  had  it  not  been  true. 

We  are  all  acquainted  from  our  cradles  with  these  twin 
tales.  David,  hunted  from  place  to  place,  now  driven  from 
the  city  he  had  rescued,  now  from  the  woods  and  wild 
recesses  of  the  desert,  was  lurking  with  a  band  of  his  followers 
in  a  deep  cave  where  perhaps  they  were  listening  breathless 
to  the  crash  of  Saul's  soldiers  upon  the  rocks,  and  their 
stumbling  progress  over  the  tufts  of  bristling  desert  herbage 
and  thickets  of  thorny  growth  :  when  lo  !  Saul  stood  in  the 
entrance  of  their  cave  alone.  The  men  who  crowded  in 
those  dark  crevices  pressed  upon  one  another's  shoulders 
to  ga/e,  and   with   fierce  whispers   and   gestures   pushed  for- 


40  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

ward    David    to   seize  the  opportunity.      Could   it  be  more 
evident  that   the    Lord    had    delivered    his    enemy  into   his 
hand  ?      It  must  have  required   no  small  force  to  resist  that 
fierce  impulsion,  even  had  no  deliverance  depended  upon  it. 
But  David  was  incapable  of  taking  his  foe  at  a  disadvantage, 
though  it  was  not  upon  this  ground  that  he  held  back  :   "  The 
Lord  forbid   that   I   should   do  this  thing  to   my  master,  to 
stretch  forth  my  hand  against  him,  seeing  he  is  the  anointed 
of  the  Lord."      But  half  for  policy  doubtless,  half  in  poetic 
impulse,  he  cut  the   skirt  of  Saul's  garment  to  prove  what 
had  been   in   his  power.      The  king's  train  we  may  suppose 
had    scattered    over   the    rocky   hillside,  clambering    up   its 
wild    terraces    as    they  could,  thinking   their    master    in    no 
danger ;    and    when    Saul    resumed    his   way    he    was    still 
virtually  alone.      David   followed   him  out  of  the   cave  with 
the  bit  of  stuff  in  his  hand.      He  called  after  Saul  and  stood 
face  to  face  with  him,  man  to  man  :  and  few  interviews  more 
affecting  were  ever  recorded  :   "  I   have  not    sinned  against 
thee.      Why  huntest  thou  my  soul  to  take  it  ? "  he  pleaded. 
"  Moreover,  my  father,  see,  yea,  see  the  skirt  of  thy  robe  in 
my  hand  :   for  in  that   I   cut  off  the  skirt  of  thy  robe,  and 
killed  thee  not,  know  thou  and  see  that  there  is  neither  evil 
nor  transgression  in  mine  hand.      The   Lord  judge  between 
me  and   thee,  and   the   Lord   avenge   me  of  thee  :   but   mine 
hand  shall   not  be  upon  thee.      As  saith  the  proverb  of  the 
ancients,    Wickedness    proceedeth    from     the    wicked  :     but 
mine    hand    shall    not    be    upon    thee."      Who    taught    the 
primeval   outlaw  that  noble  appeal  to  the  better  nature  of 
the  enemy  whom  David  had  never  been  able  to  learn  how 
to  hate,  notwithstanding  all  his  cruelty  ?      And  Saul,  a  man 
of    swiftly    changing    moods,    of  quick    perceptions,    with    a 
strain  of  wild  generosity  too  in  the  heart  which  was  subject 
to  the  sway  of  passions   so  dark,  and   that  despair  which  is 
so  often  poisonous   in  the  depth   of  its  gloom — was  not  un- 
responsive   to    the    appeal.      "  Is    this    thy    voice,    my    son 
David  ?  "  he  cries,  penetrated  to  the  heart. 

The  other  scene  is  still  more  picturesque.      Again  there 
is  treachery  at  work  but  with  more  excuse  than  that  of  the 


CHAP.  II  THE  OUTLAW  IN  THE  WILDERNESS  41 

men  of  Keilah.  No  doubt  David  and  his  six  hundred  were 
uneasy  neighbours  for  the  Ziphites,  and  held  them  in  per- 
petual alarm,  and  it  was  little  wonder  that  they  should  send 
word  to  the  king,  who  was  known  to  desire  nothing  so  much 
as  the  capture  of  the  son  of  Jesse,  that  the  outlaw  was  there, 
lurking  among  the  hills,  and  with  little  possibility  of  escape 
were  the  pursuing  force  sufficiently  strong.  The  news  was 
brought  to  David,  we  may  be  sure,  as  soon  as  the  tents 
were  pitched  upon  the  opposite  slopes  whence  Saul  intended 
to  encircle  and  crush  his  victim.  The  wanderer  looked  out 
from  the  height  upon  the  encampment  below  and  saw  the 
place  where  his  pursuer  lay.  "  Who  will  go  down  with 
me  to  Saul  to  the  camp  ? "  he  asked  after  long  gazing 
at  the  spot.  Abishai,  his  sister's  son,  was  the  man  who 
offered  himself  for  that  dangerous  service,  and  when  the 
night  came,  the  two  Eastern  heroes,  lightly  clad,  and  softly 
shod,  descended  noiseless  into  the  midst  of  the  slumbering 
multitude. 

Again  we  are  reminded  of  the  ages  of  chivalry, 
of  the  minstrels'  tales,  and  romance  of  modern  thought. 
The  two  gliding  figures  reached  the  very  centre  of  the 
encampment  where  the  king  lay,  with  his  spear  stuck  in 
the  ground  within  reach  of  the  piled  mats  or  carpets  which 
formed  his  bed.  Once  more  Abishai  whispered  that  the 
moment  had  come,  that  the  Lord  had  delivered  their  enemy 
into  their  hand.  "  Let  me  smite  him,  I  pray  thee,  with  the 
spear  even  to  the  earth  at  once,"  said  the  fierce  murmur  in 
David's  ear,  "  and  I  will  not  smite  the  second  time  " — grim 
promise  which  the  son  of  Zeruiah  would  not  have  failed  to 
redeem.  But  no  such  thought  was  in  the  mind  of  the 
noble  outlaw.  There  is  in  the  utterances  of  David  at  these 
moments  a  strain  of  emotion  which  is  very  remarkable. 
One  would  say  as  of  a  man  in  whose  heart  there  was  still 
a  great  yearning  of  affection  for  that  doomed  king,  of  whom 
he  now  knew  that  he  was,  yet  never  desired  to  be,  the  most 
dangerous  rival — the  king  who  was  so  capable  of  being 
touched  by  the  truth,  yet  so  incapable  of  continuing  in  it, 
or  departing  from  the  rage  of  jealous  fear  and  certainty  of 


42  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D  part  i 

doom  that  was  in  his  heart.  It  is  still  more  remarkable  to 
see  how  that  certainty  had  become  by  this  time  the  acknow- 
ledged feeling  of  all  who  were  most  closely  concerned.  Not 
a  word  of  it  comes  from  the  lips  of  David,  but  the  others 
do  not  hide  their  conviction.  "  Behold  I  know  well  that 
thou  shalt  surely  be  king,"  says  Saul  himself  after  the 
encounter  in  the  cave  ;  and  even  at  an  earlier  date  Jonathan 
had  expressed  the  same  conviction.  They  were  fighting,  as 
they  knew,  a  lost  battle :  it  was  David  finally  to  whom  all 
the  honour,  all  the  success,  must  come  ;  and  this  conviction 
in  Saul's  mind,  fiercely  resisted  no  doubt  with  wild  outbursts 
of  fury  and  despair,  gave  bitterness  and  passion  to  all  his 
actions.  When  Abigail  camx  upon  her  mission  to  David 
she  expressed  the  same  sentiment,  which  shows  that  it  had 
already  affected  the  popular  mind  :  "  When  the  Lord  shall 
have  done  to  my  lord  according  to  all  the  good  that  he 
hath  spoken  concerning  thee,  and  shall  have  appointed  thee 
ruler  over  Israel."  It  would  seem  that  no  one  but  David 
himself  had  any  doubt  that  the  outlaw  who  went  in  daily 
danger  of  his  life  pursued  from  wilderness  to  wilderness, 
was  the  future  King  of  Israel — and  least  of  all  the  family  so 
closely  connected  with  him,  between  whom  and  himself 
there  were  such  ties  of  love  and  hatred,  the  household  of 
the  king  whom  he  was  to  supplant  and  to  succeed. 

Still  more  like  a  romance  of  the  days  of  chivalry  was 
the  action  of  David  after  that  night  visit  to  the  camp  of 
Saul.  When  the  morning  broke,  and  they  had  stolen  their 
way  through  the  sleepers  eluding  any  watch  that  might 
have  been  set,  or  careless  sentinel — David  and  his  attendant 
stood  upon  the  hillside  opposite,  and  called  to  the  astonished 
host.  It  was  Abner  whom  he  called,  the  commander, 
upbraiding  him  with  the  inefficient  watch  he  had  kept. 
"  Art  not  thou  a  valiant  man  ?  And  who  is  like  to  thee  in 
Israel  ?  "  he  cries,  "  Wherefore  then  hast  thou  not  kept  thy 
lord  the  king  ?  For  there  came  one  of  the  people  in  to 
destroy  the  king  thy  lord."  "  One  of  the  people  !  "  There 
is  a  careless  pride  in  the  phrase  which  bears  no  resemblance 
to  the  pride  that  apes  humility.      David  would  not  say  that 


CHAP.  II  THE  OUTLAW  IN  THE  WILDERNESS  43 

it  was  himself:  the  greater  shame  to  the  ineffectual  guard 
that  it  was  one  of  the  people,  any  man  so  to  speak,  who 
had  been  able  to  thread  the  sleeping  ranks  and  carry  off  the 
king's  spear,  Saul  was  a  man  of  unusual  stature,  and  no 
doubt  his  spear  was  known  among  the  people  like  that  of 
Goliath,  "  like  a  weaver's  beam."  And  to  see  it,  with  its 
glittering  blade  shining  in  the  morning  sun  on  the  other 
side  of  the  ravine  in  the  hand  of  the  poet-orator,  whose 
indignant  yet  tender  remonstrance  came  pealing  over  those 
depths,  must  have  affected  powerfully  the  listening  and 
eager  host,  as  it  affected  the  unhappy  king  himself,  in  whom 
once  more  his  better  nature  burst  forth.  But  Saul's  moods 
of  compunction  were  evanescent,  and  it  was  his  only  policy 
to  destroy  David  if  that  might  be.  The  knot  was  cut  in 
this  instance  by  the  sudden  alarm  of  a  Philistine  invasion  : 
Saul  was  compelled  to  turn  back  from  his  private  vengeance 
to  meet  the  public  foe. 

But  it  would  seem  that  save  for  this  unexpected  diversion 
the  outlaws  surrounded  in  the  wilderness  had  little  prospect 
of  escape  before  them.  And  David  having  made  that  last 
attempt  to  move  the  heart  of  his  pursuer,  fell  himself  under 
the  heaviness  of  despair.  He  had  escaped  for  this  time,  but 
one  day  or  other  in  face  of  such  a  desperate  and  ceaseless 
pursuit  he  must  perish  by  the  hand  of  Saul.  To  what  end 
should  he  struggle  further  ?  Deeper  and  deeper  had  he 
burrowed  in  those  desolate  places,  in  the  wildest  caverns, 
the  most  dreary  deserts,  even  down  to  the  arid  shores  of  the 
Salt  Sea,  that  region  accursed,  with  all  its  dismal  memories. 
It  must  have  given  an  additional  pang  to  his  warlike  .soul  to 
know  that  the  very  necessity  which  saved  him  and  called  off 
his  pursuers  was  one  in  which,  had  things  been  otherwise, 
he  himself  would  have  been  the  champion,  the  leader  sent 
against  the  Philistines.  Once  more  we  may  find  a  parallel 
to  David's  case  in  that  of  a  Scots  noble  in  di.sgrace  betaking 
himself  with  shame  and  wrath  to  the  protection  of  the  Eng- 
lish, with  whom  he  had  been  in  warfare  all  his  life.  In  the 
.same  way  the  Douglas  banished  sought  refuge  in  England, 
nay  even  a  Stuart,  Alexander  of  Albany,  who  was  perse- 


44  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D  part  i 

cuted  by  his  brother  James  III.  on  warrant  no  greater  than 
that  of  Saul,  followed  the  same  example  :  both,  however,  fall- 
ing into  the  guilt  of  plots  against  their  native  kingdom  from 
which  David  kept  himself  free. 

The  story  of  David  is  indeed  that  of  a  blameless 
knight,  a  cavalier  sans  peur  ct  sans  rcproche  up  to  this 
time.  He  had  done  all  in  honour  from  the  first  moment 
of  his  appearance,  putting  forth  no  pretensions,  behaving 
himself  with  all  the  grace  of  a  perfect  hero.  What  little 
transactions  there  may  have  been  in  the  wilderness  with  those 
six  hundred  and  their  train  of  women  and  children  to  pro- 
vide for,  there  is  no  record  ;  but  at  all  events  he  would 
seem  to  have  been  courteous  and  conciliatory  even  to  those 
from  whom  he  levied  supplies,  as  in  the  case  of  Nabal,  where 
there  is  an  ingratiating  tone  of  friendliness  and  modesty  in 
the  first  demand,  remarkable  in  the  case  of  a  brigand  chief, 
as  David  has  constantly  been  called,  who  was  so  able  to 
take  without  apology  what  he  desired.  Blackmail,  to  be 
sure,  is  an  ugly  word  :  but  the  most  carefully  constructed 
system  of  taxes  is  in  reality  nothing  but  blackmail,  the 
payment  for  that  protection  which  an  established  government 
gives,  and  which  it  has  no  moral  right  to  exact  except  on 
that  supreme  and  universally  acknowledged  argument.  The 
days  of  David  were  very  primitive  days,  and  Saul's  authority 
or  power  of  protection  as  king  must  have  been  limited  :  so 
that  the  outlaw  who  was,  according  to  Nabal's  herdsmen, 
"  a  wall  to  us  both  by  day  and  by  night,"  was  in  reality 
the  only  representative  of  a  protecting  government  to  those 
defenceless  people.  Any  defence  of  David,  however,  on 
this  score  is  sophistry  to  us,  and  would  have  been  the  most 
unnecessary  thing  in  the  world  to  him. 

At  all  events,  the  severest  critic  can  find  little  else  to 
reproach  David  with  in  this  period  of  his  career.  He  was 
forced  into — not  rebellion,  for  no  act  against  Saul's  authority 
is  ever  suggested — but  into  a  wild  and  feudatory  life  by 
incessant  pursuit  and  persecution  ;  yet  he  raised  no  hostile 
banner,  put  forth  no  pretensions  to  the  crown.  And  when 
in  despair  and  sickness  of  heart  he  turned  away  and  directed 


CHAP.  11  THE  OUTLAW  IN  THE  WILDERNESS  45 

his  steps  once  more  to  the  Philistine  court  to  seek  the 
protection  of  the  enemies  of  Israel,  it  was  not  like  Coriolanus 
to  ruin  Rome,  nor  like  Albany  to  sign  secret  treaties  against 
the  independence  of  his  country,  but  only  to  shelter  himself 
from  a  ceaseless  pursuit,  and  to  give  rest  to  the  land  harassed 
by  that  perpetual  search  and  invasion. 

And  while  he  thus  found  his  only  home  in  those  caves 
and  secret  solitudes  the  poet-wanderer  poured  forth  in  many 
a  troubled  strain  the  sorrows  of  his  heart  to  God.  So  many 
of  the  critics  as  consent  to  his  part  in  the  Psalms  at  all, 
tell  us  that  these  are  rough  and  untuneable,  the  most  primi- 
tive accents  of  poetry  (perhaps  as  Milton  in  his  learned 
superiority  spoke  of  the  immortal  diction  of  Shakespeare 
as  "wood -notes  wild");  but  to  the  multitudes  who  have 
used  for  thousands  of  years  those  very  words  of  David  to 
express  their  own  sorrow  and  pain,  and  have  found  no  such 
perfect  utterance  in  all  the  system  of  modern  hymns  and 
canticles,  the  criticism  means  little.  It  must  be  amazing 
to  the  musician  who  knows  the  elaborate  structure  of  his 
own  art,  to  see  how  easily  proficiency  in  that  science,  so 
much  less  simple  than  poetry,  is  attributed  to  this  primi- 
tive singer.  The  music  to  which  these  psalms  were  set 
in  after  years,  or  to  which — who  can  tell  ? — David  himself 
simply  adapted  them  as  he  sat  in  the  mouth  of  his  cave, 
or  at  the  door  of  his  tent  in  the  clear  Eastern  nights, 
in  those  intervals  of  peace  when  the  pursuers  were  not 
at  his  heels,  was  probably  a  mere  chant  with  cadences, 
that  wild  natural  strain  nothing  in  itself  but  an  aid  to  the 
utterance  of  the  poem — the  minstrel's  story,  or  the  mourner's 
lament,  or  the  psalm  of  triumph  and  joy — which  is  the  begin- 
ning of  all  primitive  music.  And  such  as  the  following  were 
the  songs  of  the  desert,  the  cry  of  the  exile  and  outlaw  : — 

O  Lord  my  God,  in  Thee  do  I  put  my  trust  : 
Save  me  from  all  them  that  persecute  me  ; 
Deliver  me  :  lest  he  tear  my  soul  like  a  lion, 
Rending  it  in  pieces,  while  there  is  none  to  deliver. 

O  Lord  my  God,  if  I  have  done  this  ; 
If  there  be  iniquity  in  my  hands  ; 


46  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D  part  i 

If  I  have  rewarded  evil  unto  him  that  was  at  peace  with  me  ; 

(Yea,  rather  I  have  delivered  him 

That  without  cause  was  my  enemy  :) 

Let  the  enemy  persecute  my  soul,  and  take  it  ; 

Yea,  let  him  tread  down  my  life  upon  the  earth, 

And  lay  mine  honour  in  the  dust. 

Arise,  O  Lord,  in  Thine  anger,  against  the  rage  of  mine  enemies  : 
Awake  for  me.  Thou  who  hast  decreed  justice. 
So  shall  the  congregation  of  the  people  compass  Thee  about  : 
For  their  sakes  return  Thou  on  high. 

The  Lord  shall  judge  the  people  : 

Judge  Thou  me,  O  Lord,  according  to  my  righteousness 

And  according  to  the  integrity  that  is  in  me. 

Oh,  let  the  wickedness  of  the  wicked  come  to  an  end  ; 

Establish  Thou  the  just  : 

For  the  righteous  God  trieth  the  hearts  and  the  reins. 

My  defence  is  of  God, 

Who  saveth  the  upright  in  heart. 

God  is  a  righteous  Judge  ; 

He  showeth  His  indignation  every  day. 

If  (the  wicked)  be  turned  not.  He  will  whet  His  sword  ; 

He  hath  bent  His  bow,  and  made  it  ready. 

He  hath  also  prepared  for  him  the  instruments  of  death  ; 

His  arrows  are  as  flame  against  the  persecutors. 

Behold,  the  wicked  travaileth  with  iniquity  ; 

He  hath  conceived  mischief. 

And  brought  forth  falsehood. 

He  made  a  pit,  and  digged  it. 

And  is  fallen  into  the  ditch  which  he  hath  made. 

For  his  mischief  shall  return  upon  himself, 

And  his  violent  dealing  upon  his  own  head. 

I  will  praise  the  Lord  according  to  His  righteousness  : 
I  will  sing  praise  unto  the  name  of  the  Lord  most  high.^ 

Another  psalm  which  breathes  the  same  spirit  of  ahnost 
despair,  rising  by  the  heahng  action  of  poetic  utterance  and 
deep  reflection  upon  the  grace  of  God  into  confidence  and 
hope,  we  have  aheady  identified  with  that  agonising  pause 
in  David's  Hfe  when  he  waited  in  hiding  for  Jonathan's 
message.  Again,  and  it  might  well  be  after  those  en- 
counters with   Saul  when   he  had   hoped   by  generosity  and 

1  One  or  two  veiy  slight  deviations  from  the  authorised  version  of  the  Psalms 
are  taken  from  the  critical  exposition  of  Messrs.  Jennings  and  Lowe. 


ciiAi'.  11  THE  OUTLAW  IN  THE   WILDERNESS  47 

affection  to  touch  his  pursuer's  heart,  he  breathes  forth  that 
appeal  of  the  sufferer  so  often  repeated  through  the  ages  : 
"  How  long,  O  Lord,  how  long  ? " 

How  long  wilt  Thou  forget  me,  O  Lord  ?  for  ever  ? 
How  long  wilt  Thou  hide  Thy  face  from  me  ? 
How  long  shall  I  take  counsel  in  my  soul, 
While  sorrow  is  in  my  heart  daily  ? 
How  long  shall  mine  enemies  be  exalted  over  me  ? 

Consider  and  hear  me,  O  Lord  my  God  : 

Lighten  mine  eyes, 

Lest  I  sleep  the  sleep  of  deatJi ; 

Lest  mine  enemy  say,  I  have  prevailed  against  him  ; 

And  those  that  trouble  me 

Rejoice  when  I  am  moved. 

But  I  have  trusted  in  Thy  mercy  ; 

My  heart  shall  rejoice  in  Thy  salvation. 

I  will  sing  unto  the  Lord, 

For  He  hath  dealt  bountifully  with  me. 

It  is,  as  has  been  already  remarked,  a  commonplace  to 
say — what  every  devout  reader  must  have  felt  in  personal 
use  of  the  Psalms — how  often  the  denunciations  of  the 
enemies  of  the  writer  come  in  with  a  jarring  discord  into  the 
prayers  and  vows  of  the  supplicant :  yet  so  far  as  David 
personally  is  concerned  there  is  not  only  much  excuse,  but 
his  force  of  malediction  is  in  reality  much  less  than  is 
supposed.  Doeg  the  Edomite,  who  betrayed  the  fact  of  his 
brief  passage  through  Nob,  and  the  kind  offices  of  the 
unfortunate  priest,  thus  bringing  about  the  massacre  of  that 
priest  and  all  his  family,  was,  for  instance,  a  ruffian  who 
would  have  had  short  shrift  in  any  community  :  while  on 
the  other  hand  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  David's  prayers 
for  vengeance  arc  limited  to  the  desire  that  his  enemies 
should  fall  into  the  net  which  they  have  laid  for  him,  and 
the  pit  they  have  digged.  That  their  craft  and  evil  devices 
should  fall  back  upon  themselves,  is,  in  the  age  when  an 
eye  was  to  be  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,  a  very 
moderate  denunciation.  It  is  remarkable  indeed  that  to 
Saul  himself  David  never  from  beginning  to  end  shows  any 
bitterness,  and  that  he  is  always  fully  capable  of  appreciating 


48  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

the  honesty  and  valour  of  such  a  character  as  Abner,  with 
whom  he  has  no  quarrel.  Curious  too  we  must  add  again 
is  the  absolute  want  of  partisanship  in  the  record.  Saul 
with  all  his  faults  never  loses  our  pity,  almost  it  may  be 
said  even  at  his  worst  moments,  our  affection.  Abner  is 
fully  recognised  in  his  manly  simplicity,  made  vivid  to  us 
by  a  few  lines  of  portraiture.  One  might  be  warranted  in 
saying  that  no  such  impartial  history  exists,  and  that  never 
in  any  record,  especially  of  civil  war  and  much  personal 
conflict,  did  the  opponents  of  the  eventually  successful  side 
get  so  fully  their  due. 

The  second  visit  of  David  to  the  Philistine  king  was 
very  unlike  the  first.  It  was  indeed  equally  the  movement 
of  despair  which  led  him  :  but  he  was  no  longer  a  solitary 
and  powerless  man,  whose  life  might  have  been  at  any 
moment  the  forfeit  of  his  temerity  in  thus  venturing  into 
the  stronghold  of  his  enemies  :  but  at  the  head  of  a  valiant 
and  desperate  band,  certain  to  have  sold  their  lives  dearly 
if  hospitality  had  been  refused  them.  It  is  clear,  as  has 
been  already  said,  that  neither  at  this  time  nor  at  any  other 
during  Saul's  lifetime  had  David  any  thought  of  an  avowed 
and  formalised  rebellion.  He  was  not  a  rival  candidate  for 
the  throne  :  nor  was  he  even  stung  by  continual  and  unceas- 
ing pursuit  to  set  up  any  rebel  standard.  The  necessities 
of  existence  drove  him  to  the  ordinary  predatory  life  of  a 
desert  chief,  which  was  not  then  or  for  many  centuries  after 
a  reproach  to  any  man.  It  is  a  little  difficult  to  understand 
how  in  Adullam  or  the  other  desert  places  where  he  after- 
wards found  refuge,  there  could  have  been  sufficient  booty 
procurable  to  maintain  such  a  body  of  men.  Rich  caravans 
from  Egypt  or  from  Tyre,  wealthy  travellers  from  south  to 
north  or  north  to  south,  the  manufacturers  of  Damascus,  or 
the  traders  from  the  already  noted  cities  of  the  coast,  would 
scarcely  have  passed  that  way  :  and  it  is  little  likely  that  the 
agriculturists  or  pastoral  farmers  around,  whom  he  rather 
protected  (as  in  the  case  of  Nabal)  than  assailed,  could  have 
furnished  enough  had  they  been  devoured  altogether,  for 
such  a   band  —  though   it   is  difficult   to   imagine  any  other 


CHAP.  II  THE  OUTLAW  IN  THE  WILDERNESS  49 

means  of  support  which  they  could  have  had.  But  if  they 
plied  the  outlaw's  usual  trade  there  is  not  the  slightest 
evidence  that  they  had  ever  thought  of  raising  the  banner 
of  King  David  in  opposition  to  King  Saul,  nor  did  the 
wanderer  ever  attempt  to  meet  in  battle  the  armies  brought 
against  him,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  a  number  of  the 
greatest  warriors  of  Israel  had  followed  him  into  the  wilder- 
ness. Had  the  six  hundred  made  a  descent  from  their 
vantage-ground  on  the  hill,  upon  that  sleeping  host  through 
which  David  threaded  his  way  to  the  very  tent  of  the  king, 
who  could  doubt  that  the  result  would  have  been  most  dis- 
astrous for  Saul  and  his  careless  followers  ?  But  no  such 
idea  ever  seems  to  have  entered  his  mind. 

The  cynical  reader  may  say  that  the  strength  was  too 
certainly  on  Saul's  side  to  make  any  such  attempt  possible  : 
but  that  consideration  has  never  restrained  any  rebel  of 
David's  prestige  and  importance,  nor  probably  could  any 
ordinary  levy  of  three  or  four  times  their  number  have  stood 
before  these  tried  and  renowned  warriors  led  by  such  a  chief 
It  is  most  singular  and  remarkable  that  no  project  of  resist- 
ance ever  seems  to  have  been  considered.  David  and  his 
men  disappeared  into  the  fastnesses  which  they  knew  so  well, 
when  they  were  pushed  by  their  pursuers  ;  twice,  as  we  have 
seen,  he  attempted  to  overcome  the  strong  hostility  against 
him  by  parley  and  the  evidences  of  his  own  veneration  for 
the  Lord's  anointed.  But  when  neither  continual  failure,  nor 
those  signs  of  a  magnanimity  which  Saul  had  the  heart  to 
appreciate  though  they  made  no  permanent  difference  in  his 
actions,  failed  to  cut  short  the  pursuit,  the  harassed  outlaw 
could  hold  out  no  longer.  "  And  David  said  in  his  heart, 
I  shall  now  perish  one  day  by  the  hand  of  Saul  :  there  is 
nothing  better  for  me  than  that  I  should  speedily  escape 
into  the  land  of  the  Philistines  ;  and  Saul  shall  despair  of 
me,  to  seek  me  any  more  in  any  coast  of  Israel  :  so  shall  I 
escape  out  of  his  hand."  This  step,  doubtful  as  it  may 
appear  to  have  been,  as  adopted  by  a  Hebrew  patriot,  was 
the  dictate  of  necessity  no  less  than  of  a  weary  despair  :  and 
it   seems  to   have  been   successful   in   its  immediate  object. 

E 


50  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  tart  i 

Perhaps  Saul  felt  that  the  rival  whom  he  so  feared  had  put 
himself  at  a  disadvantage  in  thus  seeking  the  protection  of 
the  common  enemy  :  just  as  the  Scots  in  their  early  history 
found  it  difficult  to  pardon  a  Scottish  knight  who  had  ac- 
cepted the  protection  of  England.  And  the  result  was  that 
the  pursuit  was  stopped,  and  David  was  left  alone  in  his 
exile.  It  was  no  doubt  an  advantage  also  to  the  harassed 
country,  continually  troubled  by  a  kind  of  civil  war,  though 
the  action  was  all  on  one  side. 

The  career  of  David  in  the  land  of  the  Philistines  was 
a  strange  one.  It  may  well  be  imagined  that  Achish,  a 
king  of  a  traditionary  race,  possessing  all  the  civilisation 
of  the  time,  and  much  more  advanced  than  the  Israelites 
who  were  still  only  a  few  generations  out  of  the  desert, 
should  have  had  no  desire  to  keep  these  six  hundred  wild 
men  out  of  the  wilderness  with  their  multitudinous  train  of 
women  and  children,  about  him  in  his  capital.  But  he  never 
seems  to  have  hesitated  about  receiving  them,  and  the  friend- 
ship and  society  of  the  wandering  paladin  would  appear 
to  have  been  delightful  to  him  as  to  almost  all  whom  David 
encountered.  Uniting  policy  with  hospitality,  however, 
Achish  speedily  allotted  to  his  formidable  visitors  the  city 
of  Ziklag,  by  what  summary  process  of  turning  out  its 
previous  inhabitants,  or  forcing  this  tremendous  invasion 
of  guests  upon  them,  we  have  nothing  to  show.  Let  us 
hope  that  Ziklag  had  been  previously  devastated  by  some 
pest,  or  emptied  of  its  people  by  some  petty  war,  neither  of 
these  unlikely  events.  It  would  seem  probable  indeed,  from 
the  fact  that  Ziklag  continued  to  be  the  property  of  the 
kings  of  Judah,  that  it  was  given  over  entirely  as  a  gift  to 
David.  It  cannot  be  said  that  he  behaved  so  nobly  in 
respect  to  Achish  as  he  had  done  to  Saul.  But  here  again 
the  record  is  wholly  impartial,  making  no  attempt  to  put 
any  gloss  upon  his  actions.  He  was  no  sooner  settled  in 
Ziklag  than,  necessities  of  existence  no  doubt  coming  in,  he 
made  a  raid  against  the  southern  people  between  Philistia 
and  the  land  of  Egypt,  allies  or  tributaries  of  his  protector, 
"  the   Geshurites,  the   Gezerites  and   the   Amalekites,"  all,   it 


CHAP.  II  THE  OUTLAW  IN  THE  WILDERNESS  51 

must  be  allowed,  ancient  enemies  of  Israel,  and  accordingly 
fair  prey  to  a  Hebrew  warrior — destroying  both  cities  and 
people  and  carrying  away  all  their  substance.  That  this 
was  recognised  as  his  means  of  living  is  evident  from  the 
highly  characteristic  question,  put  in  all  civility  and  friend- 
liness by  Achish,  over  whom  the  Hebrew  chief  had  exercised 
his  usual  charm.  "  Whither  have  ye  made  a  raid  to-day  ?  " 
said  this  indulgent  monarch.  The  magnanimous  David 
did  not  hesitate  to  tell  a  politic  lie.  He  pretended  that 
his  expedition  had  been  against  the  south  of  Judah.  It 
was  much  as  if  a  Scots  knight  under  hiding  in  England 
had  made  his  foray  against  some  peaceful  dale  on  the 
south  side  of  the  border,  but  explained  to  the  English 
authorities  that  it  was  from  Liddesdale  that  he  had  brought 
those  herds  of  lowing  cattle.  In  both  cases  the  reason  would 
have  satisfied  his  own  conscience  that  his  raid  was  justifiable 
by  the  fact  that  these  were  the  enemies  of  his  own  country 
whom  he  had  despoiled,  whatever  might  have  been  its 
effect  upon  his  hosts.  David  went  a  step  farther  with  true 
Oriental  cruelty  and  completeness.  He  "  saved  neither 
man  nor  woman  alive,  lest  they  should  tell  on  us  saying. 
So  did  David,  and  so  will  be  his  manner  all  the  while  he 
dvvcUcth  in  the  country  of  the  Philistines."  Achish  fell 
completely  into  the  trap.  He  believed  that  the  raid  had 
really  been  made  upon  David's  own  race,  and  that  "  he  hath 
made  his  people  Israel  utterly  to  abhor  him  ;  therefore  he 
shall  be  my  servant  for  ever."  To  offer  any  excuses  for 
David  is  no  more  the  part  of  this  writing  than  of  the  strictly 
impartial  and  just  record.  His  name  must  bear  this 
reproach  as  it  has  other  and  still  more  grievous  reproaches 
to  bear. 

After,  however,  he  had  lived  more  than  a  year  in  Ziklag, 
doubtless  employing  himself  in  various  expeditions  of  the 
kind  above  recorded,  and  settling  himself  more  and  more 
comfortably  in  his  newly-acquired  residence,  like  an  Italian 
captain  of  the  Middle  Ages,  a  Sforza  or  a  CoUeoni,  there 
came  an  alarming  crisis  in  this  lawless  yet  carefully  ordered 
life.    War  was  again  declared  between  the  Philistines  and  Saul, 


52  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

and  there  was  a  general  gathering  of  the  forces  of  the  plains 
against  those  of  the  mountains.  Here  was  a  test  which 
David  perhaps  had  not  foreseen,  in  the  first  impulse  of  his 
despair,  that  he  should  be  called  upon  to  join  the  army  of 
his  protector  against  his  own  people.  It  was  no  doubt  a 
bitter  moment  ;  but  the  severe  and  self- restrained  record 
gives  us  no  glimpse  into  the  musings  of  the  exile,  torn  in 
two  as  he  must  have  been  by  the  cruel  situation,  which  was 
terrible  to  every  sentiment  as  well  as  destructive  to  every 
ambitious  desire  or  hope  for  the  future :  for  how  could 
Israel  ever  forgive  the  sight  of  her  own  son  fighting 
against  her  in  the  ranks  of  her  bitterest  enemies  ?  Yet  how 
could  he  desert  the  friend  who  had  sheltered  him  in  his 
worst  need  ?  The  mediaeval  captain  to  whom  we  have  com- 
pared him  turned  his  arms  gaily  from  one  side  to  another 
according  to  the  remuneration  offered  him.  But  David  was 
no  mercenary,  and  as  yet  had  done  nothing,  except  the 
mere  fact  of  living  among  the  Philistines,  contrary  to  his 
allegiance. 

The  moment  of  trial,  however,  had  now  come.  "  Know 
thou  assuredly,"  said  Achish,  calling  his  guest  to  him,  "  that 
thou  shalt  go  up  to  battle  with  me,  thou  and  thy  men." 
There  is  something  authoritative,  even  threatening,  in  this 
intimation.  And  whether  the  reply  of  David  was  intended 
for  an  equivocation  or  not  it  is  difficult  to  tell.  "  Surely 
thou  shalt  know  what  thy  servant  can  do."  Did  he  mean 
to  be  "  falsely  true  "  to  Achish  as  the  king  understood  him, 
or  did  he  intend  a  treachery  which  the  stronger  ties  of 
patriotism  and  kindred  might  have  justified  to  himself?  A 
more  exciting  moral  crisis  could  not  be.  But  we  shall  never 
know  how  it  would  have  ended  :  whether  faith  unfaithful, 
and  the  honour  of  a  fugitive  so  deeply  indebted  to  his  pro- 
tector, or  natural  feeling  and  all  the  strong  inducements  of 
ambition  and  policy,  would  have  carried  the  day.  Fortunately 
for  David  the  Philistine  leaders  here  interfered.  There  were 
among  them  no  doubt  many  whose  relations  and  friends 
had  fallen  by  David's  hand,  many  who  had  filed  before  his 
hot   pursuit   after  that   battle  in  Ephes-dammim,  and   others 


CHAP.  II  THE  OUTLAW  IN  THE  WILDERNESS  53 

not  identified  in  history — many  too  who  were  jealous  of  his 
favour  with  Achish  and  who  had  no  faith  in  the  truth  or 
fideh'ty  of  an  Israelite.  When  these  leaders  found  that 
Uavid  and  his  men  were  in  the  contingent  which  Achish 
himself  led  to  the  rallying  -  point,  they  turned  upon  the 
king  with  remonstrances  which  show  how  little  superiority 
the  fact  of  kingship  gave  among  those  independent  captains. 
"  What  do  these  Hebrews  here  ? "  they  asked  fiercely. 
Achish  was  plausible  and  conciliatory  in  his  explanation. 
"  Is  not  this  David,  which  has  been  with  me  these  years,  and 
I  have  found  no  fault  in  him?"  Is  not  this  David  !  Well 
did  they  remember  who  this  David  was,  the  man  of  whom 
the  Hebrew  women  had  sung,  "  one  to  another  in  dances, 
saying,  Saul  has  slain  his  thousands,  and  David  his  ten 
thousands."  "  Make  this  fellow  go  back,"  they  cried  with 
one  voice,  not  without  an  angry  gibe  at  the  partiality  of 
Achish.  "  Let  him  return,  that  he  may  go  back  to  his  place 
which  thou  hast  appointed  him,  and  let  him  not  go  down  with 
us  to  battle,  lest  in  the  battle  he  may  be  an  adversary  to 
us  :  for  wherewith  should  he  reconcile  himself  to  his  master? 
should  it  not  be  with  the  heads  of  these  men  ? " 

It  is  easy  to  imagine  with  what  a  sensation  of  relief 
David  must  have  listened  to  the  echoes  of  this  controversy, 
which  no  doubt  had  flown  through  all  the  camp  as  every 
new  detachment  arrived,  and  soon  penetrated  to  where  the 
Hebrews — heavy  and  sad — pitched  their  tents  among  the 
alien  host.  "  Their  honour  rooted  in  dishonour  stood  :  "  every 
claim  of  gratitude  and  loyalty  bound  them  to  the  generous 
king  :  and  yet  when  they  saw  before  them  the  standard  of 
their  country,  and  recognised  the  ensigns  each  man  of  his 
tribe,  what  pangs  must  have  been  in  every  heart !  The 
rage  of  the  Philistine  leaders  no  doubt  fell  like  balm  from 
heaven  upon  David  and  his  men.  He  made  a  little  polite 
objection,  a  little  remonstrance  to  his  royal  patron — "  What 
have  I  done  ?  What  hast  thou  found  in  thy  servant  that  I 
may  not  go  up  against  the  enemies  of  my  lord  the  king?" 
But  Achish  was  happily  peremptory,  and  anxious,  it  would 
seem,  to  avert  any  possibility  of  collision.      "  As  soon  as  yc 


54  THE  HOUSE  OE  DAVID  tart  i 

be  up  early  in  the  morning,  and  yc  have  h'ght,  depart,"  he 
said.  One  can  imagine  with  what  alacrity,  with  what 
thanksgiving  to  the  God  of  Israel  who  thus  prevented 
such  a  sin  against  Himself  and  His  people,  the  hardy 
warriors  sprang  up  in  the  dawning  and  vanished  from  the 
warlike  scene.  Their  faith  to  Achish  forbade  them  to  draw 
sword  for  their  brethren,  and  no  doubt  there  were  many 
anxious  thoughts  over  the  issue  of  that  day  to  Israel:  but  at 
all  events  they  were  preserved  from  the  horror  of  fighting 
against  them,  and  on  the  enemies'  side. 

This  providential  deliverance  was  carried  out  and  made 
still  more  emphatic  by  the  next  incident  which  occurred  to 
David  and  his  men  :  a  terrible  incident  enough,  yet  one 
which  must  have  been  always  possible  in  their  lives.  They 
returned  to  Ziklag  to  find  their  town  in  ruins,  smoke  and 
flame  still  bursting  from  the  roofs,  the  place  deserted,  not 
a  woman  nor  a  child  about  to  greet  their  return,  and  every 
sign  of  a  successful  raid  such  as  those  with  which  they  were 
themselves  familiar,  not  a  living  creature  left  in  the  desolate 
place  to  tell  the  tale.  With  the  same  measure  which 
they  had  meted  out  it  was  measured  to  them  again  :  but 
perhaps  that  is  not  a  reflection  which  consoles  any  one, 
especially  not  a  band  of  men,  returning  to  find  their  homes 
empty  and  everything  belonging  to  them  destroyed  or 
carried  away.  In  the  first  moment  of  anguish  and  horror 
even  his  brothers-in-arms  turned  upon  David.  There  was 
wild  talk  among  the  men  of  stoning  him  in  the  rage  of  their 
desolation,  as  the  cause  of  this  trouble  :  which  of  course  was 
as  foolish  as  it  was  unjust,  since  it  was  David  to  whom  they 
owed  their  homes  and  possessions,  and  he  was  himself  as 
great  a  sufferer  as  any.  It  would  seem,  however,  that  he 
soon  found  means  of  quieting  these  murmurs  and  of  decid- 
ing what  course  to  pursue.  There  must  have  been  some 
spectator,  some  old  man,  or  useless  person  hidden  among 
the  ruins  who  stole  forth  at  sight  of  the  returning  band, 
and  informed  them  that  it  was  the  Amalekites,.  one  of  whose 
cities  David  had  treated  so  cruelly,  who  had  taken  this  venge- 
ance, but  who,  more  merciful  than  David,  had  killed  nobody, 


CHAP.  II  THE  OUTLA  W  IN  THE  WILDERNESS  55 

SO  that  there  was  still  hope  of  recovering  the  captives. 
David  put  heart  and  courage  into  his  men  by  consulting 
God,  in  the  extraordinary  way  which  it  is  so  difficult  to 
understand,  by  means  of  the  ephod,  and  receiving  a  favour- 
able answer,  re-formed  at  once  his  weary  followers  and  set 
out  in  pursuit.  The  men  had  been  marching  all  day,  and 
when  they  reached  Ziklag  were  already  exhausted  with  their 
journey  ;  but  the  occasion  was  too  urgent  for  rest.  Two 
hundred  of  them,  however,  were  so  faint  that  they  could  not 
go  far,  and  had  to  be  left  behind  half-way  while  the  others 
went  on.  The  end  was  that  the  fierce  and  anxious  pursuers 
came  down  upon  their  spoilers  in  the  moment  of  repose, 
when  they  had  stopped  for  the  night,  and,  secure  in  the  ab- 
sence of  all  the  warriors  of  the  country  and  the  impossibility 
of  pursuit,  had  given  themselves  up  to  feasting  and  rejoicing. 
It  was  not  only  Ziklag  that  had  been  spoiled  but  the  borders 
of  Judah,  and  those  of  Philistia,  both  nations  in  preparation 
for  the  coming  conflict  having  been  compelled  to  leave  their 
frontiers  unguarded  ;  and  the  night  camp  was  surrounded  by 
bleating  of  sheep  and  lowing  of  cattle,  as  well  as  by  the 
unhappy  groups  of  women  and  children  huddled  together, 
not  knowing  perhaps  the  moment  when  the  caprice  of  their 
conquerors  might  inflict  still  greater  misery.  Upon  them  in 
their  moment  of  relaxation  the  fierce  Hebrews,  full  of  the 
rage  of  exhaustion  as  well  as  revenge,  fell  like  wolves  upon 
sheep.  They  took  them  with  the  cup  at  their  lips,  with  their 
arms  laid  aside :  "  they  smote  them  from  the  twilight  even 
unto  the  evening  of  the  next  day."  Four  hundred  "  young 
men  who  rode  upon  camels  "  are  said  to  have  escaped.  The 
numerals  of  the  Old  Testament  are  always  confusing,  and  the 
whole  strength  of  David's  band  was  but  four  hundred.  But 
such  victories  over  overwhelming  numbers  are  characteristic 
of  primitive  warfare,  and  the  young  men  on  the  camels  may 
have  been  some  advanced  guard,  who  believed  all  Judah  to 
be  upon  them.  At  all  events  David's  band  recovered  their 
wives  and  children,  which  was  their  first  object,  besides  an 
immense  spoil. 

This  may  be  said  to  have  been  the  end  of  David's  career 


S6  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VID  part  i 

as  an  outlaw.  His  conduct  after  this  extraordinary  victory 
was  full  of  wisdom  and  policy.  He  not  only  ordained  and 
settled  as  a  law  in  Israel  that  the  men  who  had  been  left 
behind  should  have  their  share  in  the  spoil,  but  he  sent 
portions  of  it  to  the  cities  of  Judah  in  which  he  himself  had 
found  succour  and  refuge  in  his  earlier  wanderings,  recalling 
himself  thus  to  their  recollection,  and  proving  how  very 
differently  he  had  been  employed  than  in  the  army  of  the 
Philistines,  where  no  doubt  the  rumour  had  already  run  that 
he  was  in  arms  against  Israel.  Much  the  reverse !  pursuing 
the  Amalekites  in  a  totally  different  direction,  avenging  his 
own  quarrel  and  those  of  his  compatriots,  recovering  the 
spoil  which  he  thus  generously  shared  with  all  his  friends. 
The  generosity  and  chivalry  of  David's  character,  so  unex- 
ampled in  his  time,  need  not  make  us  overlook  those 
qualities  of  policy  and  astute  calculation  in  which  he  was 
likewise  strong.  He  was  not  a  knight  of  romance  alone, 
though  he  was  so  in  a  manner  unknown  to  any  other 
primitive  literature  of  any  nation — but  at  the  same  time  he 
was  a  far-seeing  and  clear-headed  Oriental  chief,  aware  of  a 
great  future  before  him,  and  with  no  mind  to  neglect  any 
just  means  of  conciliating  the  popular  favour.  That  he 
should  have  been  able  to  turn  that  decisive  moment  when 
fate  seemed  against  him — when  it  seemed  all  but  certain  that 
he  must  compromise  himself  for  ever  with  Israel  by  fighting 
on  the  side  of  her  enemies — into  a  triumphant  vindication  of 
his  patriotism  and  unfailing  sympathy  for  his  country  is  the 
most  wonderful  instance  of  the  way  in  which  fact  itself,  and 
the  contrarieties  of  human  sentiment,  fight  for  the  man  who 
knows  how  to  use  them.  Had  the  Philistine  lords  been 
wise  like  David  they  would  have  forced  him  into  that  self- 
committal  instead  of  affording  him  the  means  of  turning  the 
situation  to  his  advantage  in  every  way.  The  very  Ama- 
lekites helped  him  in  that  futile  raid  of  theirs,  which  for  the 
first  moment  looked  like  the  overturn  of  his  fortunes  and 
happiness. 

He  was   still   in   the   flush   of  his   triumph    dividing   his 
spoil,  sending  out  his   presents  here  and   there,   perhaps   in 


CHAP.  II  THE  OUTLAW  IN  THE  WTLDEKNESS  57 

his  excitement  almost  forgetting  the  great  battle  that  had 
been  raging  on  the  plains,  when  a  fugitive  with  all  the 
signs  of  woe  upon  him,  his  garments  rent  and  earth  upon 
his  head,  ostentatious  in  his  show  of  mourning,  arrived  with 
news  of  the  fight.  The  Israelites  had  been  beaten  ;  they 
had  been  driven  back  dispersed  and  flying  before  the 
Philistines,  and  Saul  and  Jonathan  were  both  killed.  It 
was  not  a  Hebrew  but  an  Amalekite  who  brought  the 
news,  a  man  with  no  natural  occasion  for  such  lamentation, 
whose  attempt  to  curry  favour  with  himself  was  evidently 
more  clear  to  David  than  his  sorrow  for  the  calamity.  And 
when  he  proceeded  to  tell  a  fabulous  story  of  how  it  was 
he  who  had  killed  Saul  at  the  prayer  of  the  defeated  king 
"  because  I  was  sure  that  he  could  not  live  after  that  he 
was  fallen  " — evidently  with  a  confident  hope  that  he  was 
thus  recommending  himself  to  the  highest  favour — David 
made  short  work  of  the  braggart  who  deserved  his  fate. 
It  was  policy,  it  ,may  be  said,  thus  to  give  the  clearest 
proof  that  this  news  was  no  joyful  news  to  the  exile. 
But  it  is  fully  consistent  with  all  we  know  of  David  to 
believe,  that  the  rage  of  sudden  grief  which  is  not  less  bitter 
perhaps  but  rather  worse,  from  the  fact  of  separation  and 
grievance  between  us  and  those  we  mourn,  was  not  less 
the  motive  of  this  act  than  of  the  song  of  sorrow,  the 
beautiful  elegy  that  burst  from  his  full  heart.  There  is  a 
curious  touch  of  realism  in  the  interpolation  "  also  he  bade 
them  teach  the  children  of  Israel  the  use  of  the  bow,"  ^ 
which  is  put  in  at  the  beginning  of  this  song :  "  for  Saul 
had  been  sore  wounded  by  the  archers "  in  the  course  of 
the  battle,  before  in  his  misery  and  downfall  he  fell  upon 
his  sword.  It  recalls  the  fervour  with  which  the  first 
James  of  Scotland  pursued  the  same  exercise,  apparently 
without  effect  in   cither  case.      But   the   wonderful   song  of 

1  This  interpol.-ition,  quoted  from  the  book  of  Jasher,  is  the  foundation  upon 
which  M.  Rcn.in  founds  his  st.ntement  tli.it  David  wrote  no  I'sahns,  but  only  an 
occasional  "  copy  of  verSes  "  on  public  subjects.  Another  veiy  usu.al  argument 
that  the  supposed  Psalms  of  David  are  impossible  to  l)e  his  .as  exprcssintj  senti- 
ments much  more  elevated  than  were  known  in  his  time,  could  scarcely  have  a 
stronger  contr.adiction  than  this,  one  of  the  most  l)eautiful  poems  in  any  language. 


58  THE  HOUSE  OE  DAVID  part  i 

both  national  and  personal  sorrow,  the  lament  of  Israel 
at  once  and  of  David,  whose  affections  had  never  been 
altogether  alienated  from  Saul,  the  first  patron  of  his  youth, 
by  any  intervening  events,  and  who  loved  Jonathan  as  a 
brother,  is  one  of  those  immortal  songs  which  to  all  nations 
and  in  all  languages  become  the  utterance  of  the  heart. 

How  are  the  mighty  fallen  ! 

The  beauty  of  Israel 

Is  slain  upon  thy  high  places. 

Tell  it  not  in  Gath, 

Publish  it  not  in  the  streets  of  Askelon  ; 

Lest  the  daughters  of  the  Philistines  rejoice, 

Lest  the  daughters  of  the  uncircumcised  triumph. 

Ye  mountains  of  Gilboa,  let  there  be  no  dew, 

Neither  rain,  upon  you, 

Nor  fields  of  offerings  : 

For  there  the  shield  of  the  mighty  is  cast  away, 

The  shield  of  Saul, 

As  though  he  had  not  been  anointed  with  oil. 

From  the  blood  of  the  slain. 
From  the  strength  of  the  mighty. 
The  bow  of  Jonathan  turned  not  back, 
The  sword  of  Saul 
Returned  not  empty. 

Saul  and  Jonathan 

Were  lovely  and  pleasant  in  their  lives. 

And  in  their  death 

They  were  not  divided  : 

They  were  swifter  than  eagles. 

They  were  stronger  than  lions. 

Ye  daughters  of  Israel,  weep  over  Saul, 
Who  clothed  you  with  scarlet. 
Who  put  on  ornaments  of  gold 
Upon  your  apparel. 

How  are  the  mighty  fallen 
In  the  midst  of  the  battle  ! 

0  Jonathan, 

Thou  wast  slain  in  thy  high  places. 

1  am  distressed  for  thee, 
My  brother  Jonathan  : 


CHAi'.  II  THE  OUTLAW  IN  THE  WILDERNESS  59 

Very  pleasant  hast  thou  been  to  me  : 
Thy  love  to  me  was  wonderful, 
Passing  the  love  of  women. 

How  are  the  mighty  fallen, 

And  the  weapons  of  war  perished  ! 

Thus  the  first  half  of  the  life  of  David,  his  probation 
and  training,  came  to  an  end,  in  great  calamity  and  confusion 
and  national  overthrow.  Nothing  could  have  ended  more 
disastrously  to  the  Hebrews  than  that  first  essay  at  the 
kingship  which  they  had  so  much  desired.  It  remained 
yet  to  be  seen  whether  the  house  of  Saul  could  make  any 
head  among  the  shattered  people,  or  what  new  settlement 
of  the  affairs  and  constitution  of  Israel  was  in  the  hand  of 
Providence. 


CHAPTER   III 


THE    KING    OF    ISRAEL 


The  romance  of  David's  life  is  so  full  of  attraction  that  we 
are  a  long  time  arriving  at  Jerusalem,  which  is  the  special 
aim  of  this  narrative.  We  will  not  therefore  linger  upon 
the  intermediate  steps,  or  the  confused  period  which  elapsed 
before  his  full  recognition  as  King  of  Israel.  It  was  only 
after  receiving  the  Divine  command  that  he  left  Ziklag  and 
adventured  himself  in  Hebron,  in  the  southern  part  of  Judah, 
as  far  removed  as  the  boundaries  of  the  tribe  permitted  from 
the  home  of  Saul:  and  which  had  always  been  an  important 
place,  the  ancient  city  of  Abraham,  still  deeply  venerated  as 
such  even  in  the  present  day.  Here  he  settled  with  a  certain 
tentative  air,  his  men  scattering  themselves  among  the 
villages,  many,  no  doubt,  finding  after  all  their  wanderings 
their  native  homes  again.  His  tribe  which,  no  doubt,  had 
followed  his  erratic  career  with  interest,  and  heard  a  thousand 
reports  and  half- fabulous  tales  of  his  prowess,  besides  the 
still  more  attaching  influence  of  those  songs  in  the  wilder- 
ness, which  had  flown  from  lip  to  lip  as  oral  literature  does 
everywhere,  but  nowhere  so  surely  as  in  the  East — must  by 
this  time  have  felt  that  its  own  power  and  greatness  as  the  first 
of  the  tribes  was  bound  up  with  his  fame.  And  they  lost  no 
time  in  taking  the  bold  step,  dangerous  if  Saul's  family  had 
been  able  to  retain  their  power,  of  anointing  David  king. 
One  of  his  first  acts  was  to  reward  and  promise  special 
protection  to  the  men  of  Jabesh-Gilead  who  had  recovered 
Saul's  remains  from  the  Philistines  and  given  them  honour- 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  6i 

able  burial  ;  and  no  doubt  the  strains  of  the  funeral  song 
were  sung  over  the  whole  country  at  once  in  celebration  of 
the  dead  and  honour  to  the  living.  But  David  had  yet 
many  difficulties  before  him  ere  his  position  was  established. 
These  difficulties  were  not  only  with  his  enemies  but  among 
his  friends  and  defenders  ;  for  it  is  only  now  that  another 
figure,  more  rugged  and  far  less  attractive  than  David,  but 
full  of  character  and  power,  a  strong  shrewd  Hebrew  with- 
out embellishment  or  grace,  apt  to  do  whatever  commended 
itself  to  his  powerful  practical  sense  without  favour  or  scruple, 
the  bold  and  ready  Joab,  appears  fully  on  the  scene.  His 
two  brothers  Abishai  and  Asahel,  shadows  of  this  strong 
primitive  figure  always  accompanying  him,  add  to  his  terrible 
presence  an  additional  power.  They  would  seem  to  have 
moved  and  fought  and  thought  together,  a  sort  of  threefold 
champion,  devoted  to  the  interests  of  their  kinsman  which 
were  their  own,  but  by  no  means  inclined  to  consider  those 
delicacies  of  feeling,  those  scruples  of  sentiment,  which  distin- 
guished David,  nor  capable  of  understanding  the  chivalrous 
side  of  his  character.  Not  for  the  sons  of  Zeruiah  was  that 
mission  of  pure  romance,  like  the  finest  inspiration  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  totally  unlike  anything  in  Greek  or  Roman 
story,  on  which  the  three  mighty  men  of  David's  band 
fought  their  way  through  the  Philistines  to  bring  their  chief 
a  draught  of  water  from  the  well  of  Bethlehem.  Joab  was 
by  far  too  hard-headed,  too  practical  a  man  to  have  lent 
himself  to  such  an  enterprise  ;  one  can  almost  imagine  the 
snort  of  indignant  scorn  with  which  he  would  watch  the 
three,  all  breathless  from  the  struggle,  bringing  that  precious 
draught  to  the  tent  door  where  their  leader  sat.  What  a 
waste  of  strength  and  effort  he  must  have  thought  it !  but 
when  the  question  was  one  of  hard  fighting  and  the  responsi- 
bilities of  a  great  command,  Joab  and  his  attendant  brothers 
were  never  at  fault. 

The  first  great  event  in  David's  reign  was  the  battle 
between  the  supporters  of  Saul's  family  under  his  great 
general  Abner,  and  the  host  of  Judah  and  servants  of  David 
under  Joab.    Abner,  though  he  occupies  but  a  small  place  in 


62  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

the  record,  is  so  set  before  us  as  to  acquire  all  our  sympathies. 
It  would  be  hard  to  say  precisely  why  this  is,  for  we  have 
few  details  of  this  manly  and  noble  personage  and  can 
scarcely  give  a  reason  for  the  attraction  we  feel  towards 
him.  His  was  all  the  real  strength  that  belonged  to  the 
impoverished  house  of  Saul  shorn  of  its  natural  leaders,  the 
heir  as  well  as  the  head  of  the  race.  Abner  it  was  who  set 
up  the  feeble  son  that  remained  upon  an  insecure  throne,  and 
gathering  all  the  forces  at  his  command  sought  the  test  of 
battle  without  delay,  hoping  no  doubt  to  crush  the  rival  of 
his  master  at  a  blow.  The  fight  took  place  at  Gibeon, 
though  it  would  seem  to  have  been  unlike  Joab's  prudence 
to  allow  himself  to  be  drawn  so  far  from  home,  and  to  risk 
the  newly  established  kingdom  of  David  on  such  a  hazard. 
Once  more  the  account  of  the  battle  might  have  come  out 
of  Froissart.  The  armies  placed  themselves,  "  sat  down," 
one  on  each  side  of  the  pool  of  Gibeon.  "  Let  the  young 
men  now  arise  and  play  before  us,"  said  Abner.  "  Let  them 
arise,"  said  Joab.  Was  this  tragic  play,  this  ordeal  of  battle 
— twelve  champions  of  Benjamin  against  twelve  of  Judah, 
meeting  between  the  two  watching  armies — a  test  perhaps 
of  eventual  success,  a  rehearsal  of  the  fight  ? 

Who  spills  the  foremost  foeman's  life. 
His  party  conquers  in  the  strife. 

We  are  not  told  what  was  the  issue  of  that  preliminary 
struggle  —  though  no  doubt  it  was  mutual  slaughter : 
but  in  the  end  Abner  was  beaten  and  his  followers  broken 
and  dispersed,  though  not  without  a  melancholy  incident 
to  spoil  the  triumph  of  the  victors.  The  youngest  of  the 
three  brothers,  Asahel,  was  "  as  light  of  foot  as  a  wild  roe," 
and  as  Abner  retreated  pursued  him,  no  doubt  fired  by 
the  thought  of  distinguishing  himself  and  emulating  the 
exploits  of  his  uncle  David  in  his  youth.  Abner  turned  to 
warn  the  hot-headed  lad  again  and  again,  bidding  him  seek 
a  more  fit  antagonist,  almost  imploring  him  to  save  himself 
But  when  such  arguments  proved  unavailing  and  there  was 
no  alternative  but  to  kill  or  be  killed,  the  regretful  general 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  63 

struck  the  youth  with  "  the  hinder  end  of  his  spear,"  hoping 
perhaps  to  disable  without   kilh'ng  him.       When  the  other 
pursuers  came  to  that  barrier  on  their  way,  the  body  of  the 
swift-footed  young  warrior  lying  across  the  path,  they  stood 
still  and  went  no  farther,  though  Joab  seems  to  have  sounded 
the  bugle  of  recall  without  knowing  what  fatal  object  it  was 
which  had  checked  the  pursuit.      That  the  fierce  and  down- 
right Joab  would  take  the  first  opportunity  of  avenging  his 
brother  was  of  course  certain — but  the  peremptory  roughness 
with  which   he  questioned   David  when   Abner,  offended   by 
Ishbosheth,  his  own  mock  king,  came  to  offer  his  allegiance, 
shows  with  what  red-hot  material  David  had  to  deal.      "  Why 
is  it  that  thou  hast  sent  him  away  ?  is  he  quite  gone  ? "  cried 
the  furious  captain,  taking  his  own  measures  with  all   the 
swiftness  of  an  avenger  to  intercept  and  call  back  the  visitor. 
When  Abner  returned  unsuspecting,  believing  himself  to  be 
recalled  by  David,  Joab  met  him  in  the  gate  of  Hebron  with 
a  treacherous  aspect  of  kindness  which  could  scarcely,  how- 
ever, deceive  a  man  as  well  acquainted  with  the  usages  of 
the  time  as  himself,  and   taking  him   aside  "  to  speak  with 
him  quietly  "  killed  him  there.     According  to  the  morals  of 
his  age  he  had  a  right  thus  to  avenge  his  brother  ;  but  it 
was  a  tragic  incident  with  which   to  begin   a  reign.      There 
was  a  universal   mourning  over  the  great  general,  who  was 
honoured  even  by  his  adversaries :  and  some  three  thousand 
years  after  the  people  wept    for  Abner,  we  too,  who  read 
the  story,  acknowledge   a   remorseful    regret    for   the   great 
career  cut  short,  the  noble  knight  laid  low.      David's  wail 
over  him  is  not  so  fine,  nor  so  clear,  as  his  lament  for  Saul, 
being  dictated   by  no  such   intimate   connection.      The   un- 
toward event,  however,  called   forth   indignation   as  well  as 
regret. 

Died  Abner  as  a  fool  dieth  ^ 

Thy  hands  were  not  bound, 

Nor  thy  feet  put  into  fetters  : 

As  a  man  falleth  before  wicked  men, 
So  fellest  thou. 

Perhaps   this   was   a   little    hard    upon    Joab,   to   whom 


64  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VID  part  i 

David  was  so  deeply  indebted  in  after  years,  and  who  stood 
by  him  doggedly  through  many  troubles,  without  ever 
awakening  that  sympathy  in  his  poetic  nature  which  went 
out  so  warmly  towards  Jonathan,  and  felt  so  deeply  the 
charm  of  Abner's  character.  The  sons  of  Zeruiah  were 
faithful  servants  to  their  kinsman,  yet  hard  taskmasters  too. 

There  is  nothing  said  in  sacred  history  of  the  plans 
that  matured  in  the  mind  of  David  while  those  years  were 
passing  in  which  no  great  event  occurred.  He  was  seven 
years  in  Hebron,  reigning  over  his  tribe  and  its  dependants, 
no  doubt  doing  much,  both  in  the  subjugation  of  foes  around, 
and  in  the  ordering  of  laws  and  living  within  ;  but  it  would 
appear,  except  for  that  one  eventful  battle  which  made  a 
blood  feud  between  Joab  and  Abner,  and  decided  the  fate 
of  the  latter,  taking  no  distinct  step  to  procure  for  himself  the 
entire  sovereignty  of  the  nation,  or  to  disturb  the  feeble  sway 
of  Ishbosheth  in  the  midland  tract  of  Palestine  which  recog- 
nised his  authority  :  notwithstanding  the  constant  muttering 
of  hostilities,  never  brought  to  any  decisive  battle,  which  existed 
between  them.  In  any  case  it  is  apparent  that  his  views  of 
kingship  were  very  different  from  those  elementary  views 
of  Saul  who  was  more  the  champion  of  Israel  than  its 
monarch,  and  had  not  changed  his  residence  nor  probably 
much  modified  his  living  on  account  of  that  imperfectly 
comprehended  charge.  The  kings  of  the  surrounding 
nations  were  kings  of  cities,  of  small  subdivisions  of  the 
country,  without  importance  enough  to  favour  any  lofty 
view  of  the  royal  office.  It  was  a  king  to  go  out  at  their 
head  in  battle,  to  give  coherence  to  their  host,  which  Israel 
had  asked  when  the  idea  first  occurred  to  them.  The  King 
of  Philistia  even,  lord  of  the  plain  and  sea-coast,  though 
wealthier  and  stronger,  and  no  doubt  much  more  advanced 
in  civilisation  than  the  king  of  a  mountain-tribe,  must  yet 
have  held  a  petty  empire  in  comparison  with  that  headship 
of  a  nation,  and  sway  from  Dan  to  Beersheba,  of  which  David 
dreamed.  Even  that  was  a  little  kingdom  enough  in  any 
modern  sense  of  the  word.  If  the  modes  of  communication 
of  our    present    time    were    ever    introduced    into    Palestine, 


CHAP.  HI  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  67 

from  Dan  to  Beersheba  would  scarcely  be  a  day's  journey : 
yet  when  compared  with  the  kingdoms  of  Tyre  and  Sidon, 
for  instance,  the  dominion  over  the  Hebrews  must  have 
appeared  a  mighty  empire.  David  would  seem  to  have 
been  the  first  since  Moses  who  had  thought  upon  that 
peculiar  people  as  an  indivisible  race  :  and  it  would  appear 
that  among  his  other  qualities  he  knew  how  to  wait.  He 
looked  on  while  Ishbosheth  alienated  Abner  :  and  even  when 
the  hopes  of  that  general's  action  in  his  own  favour  were 
closed  by  his  sudden  death,  would  seem  to  have  taken  no 
steps  to  precipitate  matters,  but  to  have  kept  in  full  fidelity 
his  promise  to  Saul  not  to  cut  off  his  house.  In  the  mean- 
time, however,  it  is  impossible  to  doubt  that  his  mind  was  full 
of  thought  and  deliberation  over  the  high  part  which  he  had  yet 
to  play  and  the  best  means  of  consolidating  and  establishing 
on  the  soundest  foundations  that  kingdom  which  he  foresaw. 
Hebron  was  at  the  extreme  end  of  the  territory  of  Judah, 
much  less  suited  than  Gibeah  had  been  for  a  capital.  With 
our  present  ideas  it  would  have  seemed  to  us  very  natural 
that  the  historian  should  have  spoken  here  of  the  sacred 
recollections  of  Mount  Moriah,  and  of  that  great  act  of 
Abraham  which  had  made  it  so  memorable.  To  the  Jew 
of  later  times,  as  well  as  to  the  Christian,  and  to  the 
Mohammedan,  that  association  would  assuredly  have  occurred, 
and  have  been  stated,  as  an  important  motive  in  the  choice 
of  Jebus  for  the  future  capital  ;  but  ancient  tradition  is 
by  no  means  clear  upon  the  fact,  and  the  more  ancient 
writer  occupies  himself  with  that  alone  and  leaves  the 
motives  to  evidence  themselves.  The  city  of  the  Jebusites 
had  other  recommendations.  Its  position  was  strong  and 
central.  The  mountains  encompassed  it  about  like  a  natural 
guard  ;  towards  Philistia,  for  example,  on  the  south  and 
west  it  was  defended  by  a  series  of  rocky  defiles,  where 
a  few  men  could  have  held  an  army  at  bay,  and  though 
these  natural  fortifications  were  less  towards  the  north, 
that  was  precisely  the  point  of  the  least  importance 
when  the  tribes  of  Israel  should  have  become  one  nation. 
In   no  other  place    were   there  the    same  advantages  com- 


68  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  lARr  i 

bined.  It  is  curious  to  find  that  little  Jebusite  town, 
upon  the  scarps  and  shelves  of  its  rocks,  which  had  been 
counted  from  the  age  of  the  first  incursion  into  Canaan 
among  the  cities  allotted  to  Judah,  still  holding  its  fierce 
local  independence  five  or  six  generations  after :  but  it  is 
evident  that  this  occurred  with  no  small  number  of  the 
towns  which  had  been  given  over  on  paper,  as  we  should  say, 
to  the  invading  tribes,  but  which  sloth  or  an  unusually  firm 
resistance,  or  the  intervention  of  other  motives  of  a  more 
immediately  urgent  kind,  had  induced  them  to  leave  alone 
until  a  more  convenient  season. 

It  would  almost  appear  as  if  David  had  made  overtures 
of  some  peaceful  mode  of  acquiring  possession  of  this 
little  city,  for  we  have  its  answer  full  of  defiance  and  vain 
confidence.  The  message  is  confused  in  phraseology  or  has 
become  so  through  defective  translations.  "  Even  the  blind 
and  the  lame.  He  shall  not  come  in,"  says  the  improved 
version  on  the  margin  of  our  Bibles  :  meaning  no  doubt  a 
brag  that  the  blind  and  the  lame  were  strong  enough  to 
defend  the  rocky  streets  and  steep  ascent  against  any 
troops  that  could  be  brought  against  them.  David  took 
up  the  gibe  and  called  to  his  bravest  captains  to  sweep  away 
those  blind  and  lame  from  his  way,  promising  the  post  of 
commander  of  the  army  to  him  who  did  so.  Those  mighty 
men  whose  feats  are  recorded,  the  great  Benaiah,  the  gallant 
Eleazer  and  the  rest,  David's  favourite  brothers-in-arms, 
were  probably  less  skilful  in  this  kind  of  service  ;  and  it  was 
Joab,  the  dour  and  long-headed  captain,  who  won  the  day. 
The  Jebusites,  punished  in  their  pride,  were  dislodged  :  and 
their  city  with  its  strong  fort  on  the  crest  of  the  hill,  its 
deep  ravines  below,  the  ledges  of  rock  upon  which  its 
dwellings  were  perched,  came  out  for  ever  from  the  ob- 
scurity of  the  ancient  ages,  and  was  made  into — not  the 
centre  of  Israel  alone,  but  of  a  great  undiscovered  world  of 
which  its  conquerors  knew  nothing — empires  mighty  and 
famous,  races  undeveloped  or  unborn,  of  which  its  little 
history,  its  insignificant  forces,  its  strange  people,  should  shape 
both  the  character  and  the  fate. 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  69 

Strange  and  wonderful  destiny  for  a  rude  Eastern  village 
wrapped  round  with  the  stony  involutions  of  inhospitable 
hills !  Athens  was  not  as  yet,  far  less  any  trace  in  the 
darkness  of  imperial  Rome  ;  nay,  even  Troy  was  not,  nor 
any  knowledge  of  its  legendary  struggles.  It  is  the  most 
bewildering  thought  when  we  attempt  to  look'  back,  with  all 
our  modern  theories  of  advancing  progress  and  the  develop- 
ment of  the  human  race,  and  see  amid  the  mists  that  covered 
all  the  rest  of  the  world,  that  incident  as  vivid  as  if  it  had 
happened  yesterday,  far  more  clear,  than  the  events  which 
are  taking  place,  for  instance,  in  India,  notwithstanding  all 
the  electric  telegraphs  in  the  world.  What  was  there  in 
that  little  town  among  the  hills  that  it  should  thus  come  in 
for  ever  into  the  moral  landscape,  be  taken  and  retaken, 
ruined  and  burned,  and  raised  again,  century  after  century, 
age  after  age,  without  ever  losing  its  supreme  place  in  the 
thoughts,  or  its  supreme  influence  over  the  destiny,  of  the 
human  race  ?  How  the  Greek — invented,  himself  and  all  his 
works,  centuries  later — would  have  scorned,  and  the  Roman 
laughed  at,  such  a  possibility  !  Yet  there  it  stands,  having 
outlived  and  transformed  them  all,  having  printed  its  history 
upon  the  very  souls  of  nations  unborn,  standing  still  among 
its  ruins,  waiting  in  silence  for  who  knows  what  final  demon- 
stration ?  The  scientific  philosopher  does  well  to  keep  his 
questioning,  his  gibes,  his  arguments  for  a  miracle  of  a 
moment,  for  which  the  narrator  had  no  leisure,  and  saw  no 
necessity,  to  furnish  proof  But  he  does  not  attempt  to 
explain  that  miracle  of  the  world,  or  demand  of  the  great 
witness  of  all  the  ages  how  such  a  prodigy  could  be. 

The  writer  may  here  confess,  if  a  personal  fancy,  prob- 
ably fantastical  enough,  may  be  permitted — to  a  strong 
desire  to  communicate  to  the  reader  what  it  was  an  in- 
dividual interest  to  attempt  to  trace — the  original  aspect  of 
this  future  capital,  in  one  sense,  of  the  world.  Two  hills, 
which  are  not  much  more  mountains  than  are  the  seven  hills 
of  Rome,  may  be  traced  in  profile  from  the  higher  ground 
on  the  other  side  of  the  valley  of  Hinnom  :  The  western 
hill  rising  to  a  point  against  the  morning  sun  slopes  down- 


70 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D 


ward,  the  modern  wall  marking  the  outline  of  the  descent ; 
then  that  line  of  defence  rises  to  the  summit  of  an  angular 
platform  on  another  eminence,  square  and  bold,  from  whence 
the  eastern  slope  falls  abruptly,  almost  at  one  point  a  pre- 
cipice, to  the  second  valley  below.  Beyond  this,  inseparable, 
is  the  third  hill  of  the  little  range,  the  Mount  of  Olives,  now 
painfully  crowned  by  a  high  white  modern  campanile  which 
has  no  business  there.  We  cannot  dissociate  this  third 
eminence  from   the   scene,  though   it  is   not  Jerusalem,   but 


THE   ANCIENT   JEBUS.      JERUSALEM    OF    DAVID's   TIME  (CONJECTURAL) 


only  the  everlasting  attendant  and  spectator  of  Jerusalem. 
This  is  how  they  lie,  the  distinctive  contour  half  buried  in 
ruin,  modern  houses  grown  like  weeds  upon  the  buried 
masses  of  ancient  houses,  palaces  and  public  places,  which 
are  only  to  be  traced  and  followed  in  their  original  lines  by 
excavations  many  feet  deep  under  the  modern  surface.  The 
little  conjectural  illustrations  here  given  show  what  the  first 
aspect  of  the  little  town  must  have  been,  and  its  transforma- 
tion when  the  Temple  was  built.  Much  increased  building 
and  the  filling  up  of  all  hollows,  more  or  less,  with  ruin  and 
the  debris  of  the  past,  have  made  the  aspect  of  the  modern 
city  that  of   an   almost    continuous    slope  from    the    height 


THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL 


71 


of  Zion  to  the  fortified  wall  of  the  Temple  enclosure,  the 
present  Haram-esh-Sherif,  from  which  the  grass-clad  declivity 
of  Mount  Moriah  descends  into  the  little  glen  of  the  Kedron, 
the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat. 

But  when  Joab's  soldiers  swarmed  up  these  slopes  from 
the  deep  valley  now  called  the  Tyropoeon,  the  primitive 
buildings  of  the  Jebusites  were  upon  the  western  hill  alone. 
The  little  town  lay,  as  the  towns  of  Judah  still  lie,  upon  the 
side  of  the  eminence,  its  little  stronghold  planted  upon  the 
height,  its  low  houses  clinging  to  the  rocky  sides,  probably 


THE   JEKUSAI.EM    OE   SOLOMON   (CONJECTURAL) 


in  many  cases  with  a  cave  for  the  innermost  room,  and 
founded  upon  the  ledges  and  layers  of  the  living  stone. 
They  were  so  much  higher  it  would  seem,  in  civilisation  then, 
than  are  the  Arabs  even  of  the  present  day  who  content 
themselves  with  mud  huts  plastered  against  the  protecting 
slope — that  their  houses  were  of  stone,  a  distinction  due  to 
their  stony  country  which  provided  the  materials  of  such 
solid  construction.  Across  that  deep  low  trench  of  a  valley 
lay  a  green  and  rounded  hill,  through  which  broke  points  of 
rock,  sloping  softly  upward  on  the  side  which  was  towards 
the  town,  but  steep  on  the  further  declivity.  We  may  be 
permitted  to  conjecture  that  its  slopes  were  covered  with 
corn,  that  a  primitive  farm  spread  out  its  long  sheds  and 


72  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  tart  i 

shelters  for  man  and  beast  somewhere  upon  the  western 
slope  looking  towards  Jerusalem,  and  that  the  farmer  had 
placed  his  winnowing  floor  upon  the  height  where  all  the 
winds  would  help  him  in  his  work,  close  by  the  rocky  altar 
on  which  Abraham  had  made  his  sacrifice.  There  must 
have  been  so  many  rudely-built  altars  all  about  the  country, 
that  perhaps  that  traditional  place  was  less  remarked — or  it 
might  be  that  the  farmer  hoped  it  would  bring  him  good 
fortune  to  thresh  his  corn  near  a  sacred  place.  It  must, 
however,  again  be  noted  that  we  know  nothing  of  any  ancient 
Jewish  traditions  as  to  this  spot,  which  explains  why  it  is 
that  no  mention  of  the  sacred  associations  of  Mount  Moriah 
is  found  either  in  the  history  or  in  the  many  psalms  and 
sacred  songs  which  have  to  do  with  the  Ark  and  Temple. 
Was  it  Mohammed,  in  his  anxious  selection  of  novelties 
wherever  he  could  find  them  to  grace  his  new  system, 
who  first  insisted  upon  the  shrine  of  Abraham,  and  founded 
one  of  his  holiest  centres  there — thus  recalling  to  the 
Christian  and  even  to  the  Jew  its  primeval  consecration  ? 
But  that  is  a  question  to  which  we  cannot  reply,  the  sole 
answer  being  that  the  mount  upon  which  the  Temple  was 
built  is  called  Mount  Moriah,  briefly  and  without  any  refer- 
ence to  its  sanctity,  in  the  description  of  the  Temple  of 
Solomon,  but  is  nowhere  else  mentioned  in  Scripture  except 
in  the  story  of  the  sacrifice  of  Abraham,  which  was  made 
in  "  the  land  of  Moriah."  We  have,  therefore,  really  no 
warrant  for  believing  that  the  site  of  the  new  capital  was 
chosen  for  any  motive  beyond  that  of  its  extreme  con- 
venience and  almost  unique  adaptation  to  the  desired  use. 
That  the  adjoining  hill  should  be  the  site  of  the  great  Temple, 
their  pride  and  glory,  the  most  magnificent  work  of  their 
race,  even  it  would  appear  splendid  enough  to  be  the  glory 
of  the  time,  though  Tyre  and  Sidon  and  other  accompany- 
ing nations  abounded  in  luxuries  and  splendours  unknown 
to  Israel,  was  evidently  enough  for  the  Israelites. 

It  was  presumably  soon  after  the  murder  of  Ishbosheth, 
which  he  avenged  summarily,  as  he  had  avenged  Saul  upon 
his   self-alleged    slayer,   that   David    took  the  stronghold   of 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  73 

the  Jebusites  and  made  it  the  seat  of  his  power.  It  was 
within  the  borders  of  Benjamin,  yet  also  within  close  reach 
of  his  brethren  of  Judah,  and  stood  high  upon  a  mount  of 
vision  where  any  proposed  invasion  could  be  guarded 
against.  Possibly  it  was  a  conciliatory  measure  towards 
that  tribe  of  Benjamin  thus  cast  down  from  its  high  position 
as  having  given  a  king  to  Israel,  to  place  the  capital  of  the 
kingdom  within  its  territory.  David  had  no  sooner  taken 
possession  of  the  place  than  he  set  to  work  to  strengthen 
and  beautify  it,  and  above  all  to  add  to  it  the  sanctity  of 
all  that  was  most  sacred  and  full  of  hallowed  associations  in 
Israel.  One  of  his  earliest  acts  after  the  full  establishment 
of  his  kingdom  was  to  proclaim  a  day  of  high  festival 
throughout  the  country  which,  bit  by  bit  and  tribe  by  tribe, 
had  acknowledged  his  sway,  inviting  all  to  come  with  him 
to  bring  up  the  Ark  to  the  new  centre  of  the  national  life. 
The  Ark  had  been  left  at  the  village  of  Kirjath-Jearim  on 
the  road  between  Jaffa  and  Jerusalem,  and  close  to  the 
border  of  the  Philistine  country,  when  it  was  sent  away  in 
terror  by  the  Philistines  according  to  a  previous  narrative  ; 
and  had  remained  there  from  the  early  days  of  Samuel  till 
now,  there  being  probably  no  pause  long  enough  among  the 
distractions  of  the  time  to  suffer  any  ruler  to  think  of  its 
proper  disposal,  or  place  sufficiently  strong  and  safe  to  keep 
it  permanently.  It  is  probable  enough  that  in  the  continual 
struggle  for  life,  the  recollection  of  that  sacred  emblem  at 
once  of  their  history  and  their  faith  had  faded  in  great 
measure  out  of  the  minds  of  the  warring  race,  whose  mere 
physical  necessities  were  so  overwhelming,  and  who  had 
to  hold  their  own  on  every  side  against  strong  and  watch- 
ful enemies.  Nothing  can  be  more  deceptive  than  our 
calculations  of  policy  as  solely  actuating  such  a  movement. 
Had  David  not  been  moved  by  strong  religious  faith,  and  a 
boundless  conviction  that  God  was  with  him,  and  all  things 
in  the  Divine  hand,  he  never  could  have  attained  the  position 
he  now  held  ;  and  it  would  be  out  of  harmony  with  all  that 
we  know  of  him  could  we  suppose  that  he  was  not  himself 
the  most  fervent  of  the  worshippers  who  filled  the  valley 


74  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VID  tart  i 

with  their  songs  as  they  went  along  towards  the  village  on 
its  little  elevation,  where,  half  forgotten  in  the  long  neglect, 
yet  no  doubt  surrounded  with  a  superstitious  veneration,  the 
ancient  Ark  of  the  desert,  symbol  of  all  the  touching  and 
wonderful  story  of  Israel,  the  Ark  which  had  passed  before 
them  through  the  wilderness,  which  had  stood  in  the  bed  of 
Jordan  when  the  people  passed  over,  and  accompanied  them 
through  all  early  dangers,  remained  where  chance  had  carried 
it  when  sent  forth  from  Philistia. 

There  would  seem  to  have  been  no  attempt  made 
before  to  bring  it  into  any  consecrated  place.  The 
death  of  the  priests,  the  destruction  of  the  house  of 
Eli,  and  universal  distraction  of  the  country,  only  half 
conquered  at  the  best,  full  of  enemies  both  within  and 
without,  had  prevented  any  such  effort.  Various  places 
of  worship  had  set  themselves  up  in  various  parts  of  the 
small  area  : — the  tabernacle  from  which  the  Ark  had  been 
taken  was  at  Gibeon  : — at  Gilgal,  at  Ramah  where  Samuel 
lived  in  his  patrimony,  at  Nob  where  a  whole  Levitical 
family  were  destroyed  by  Saul,  centres  of  worship  had  been 
established  where  some  attempt  to  carry  out  the  appointed 
ritual  of  worship  was  made,  sacrifices  were  offered  and  the 
people  "  inquired  at  the  Lord  "  in  that  curious  way  which  it 
is  so  hard  to  understand.  But  these  were  probably  old 
shrines  either  adapted  from  the  surrounding  nations  or 
instituted  hastily  to  meet  an  everyday  necessity.  Kirjath- 
Jearim  lies  on  a  soft  little  knoll  in  the  sunshine,  its  level 
lines  of  low  houses  surrounded  by  trees  more  luxuriant  than 
are  usual  in  Palestine,  its  position  especially  peaceful  and 
smiling — though  so  near  the  border  line,  where  the  fierce 
Philistines  must  have  watched,  one  cannot  but  feel,  those 
strange  proceedings  of  the  now  conquering  and  prosperous 
Hebrews  with  much  curiosity  and  some  alarm.  The  pro- 
cession must  have  surrounded  the  house  of  Abinadab  which 
was  "  on  the  hill,"  with  their  music  and  their  songs,  waiting 
till  the  Ark  was  brought  forth  upon  "  a  new  cart "  or  car,  the 
sons  of  Abinadab,  one  in  front  and  one  behind,  conducting 
it.      In  that  very  valley  the   men  of  Bethshemesh   had   been 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  75 

punished  for  their  vulgar  and  profane  curiosity  in  opening 
and  looking  into  the  sacred  treasures.  But  that  was  already 
an  old  story,  and  perhaps  the  popular  delight  and  excite- 
ment of  the  festival  had  made  the  crowd  of  followers  almost 
forget  what  was  the  sacred  occasion  of  their  rejoicing :  and 
by  the  time  that  the  music  and  the  rhythmic  dance — 
those  convolutions  of  almost  solemn  movement,  which  are 
so  unlike  anything  that  we  know  under  the  name  of  dancing 
— had  reached  the  southern  valley  under  the  hill  of  Zion  the 
wild  excitement  of  the  crowd  had  probably  reached  a  climax. 
As  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  natural  causes  are 
not  used  by  Providence  in  all  ages,  it  is  legitimate,  we  think, 
to  believe  that  the  sudden  death  of  Uzzah,  who  is  said  to 
have  taken  hold  of  the  Ark  to  steady  it,  and  thus  called 
down  upon  him  the  wrath  of  the  Lord — was  due  to  the 
fatigue  and  excitement,  the  pressure  of  the  crowd  and  the 
blazing  of  the  sun :  but  the  incident  which  was  so  emphatic 
an  interruption  of  their  mirth  affected  as  nothing  else  could 
have  done  the  imagination  of  the  multitude,  and  recalled 
them  to  a  sense  of  the  sacredness  of  that  symbol  of  God's 
presence  which  in  the  delight  of  their  holiday  they  had  been 
so  ready  to  forget. 

David  was  as  much  startled  and  terrified  as  the  least 
instructed  of  his  followers  by  this  incident,  and  the  terrible 
Ark  was  hurriedly  dragged  aside  to  the  nearest  farm-steading, 
where  it  was  placed  once  more  upon  a  threshing-floor  and 
abandoned,  the  gay  processionists  dispersing  to  their  homes 
in  terror  and  dismay.  "  David  was  displeased,"  indignation 
mingling  with  alarm  in  his  heart  that  God  whom  he  had 
meant  to  honour  should  have  "  made  a  breach  upon  Uzzah." 
He  called  the  fatal  spot  by  the  victim's  name  as  he  hurried 
away  to  hide  his  head  in  his  castle  on  the  hill.  The  im- 
partial record  has  no  indulgence  for  him,  but  puts  down 
this  sullen  fit  of  anger  with  the  same  composure  as  his 
most  pious  acts.  It  is  not  a  sentiment  unknown  to  any 
of  us,  even  the  mo.st  devout ;  yet  none  of  our  historians 
now  would  venture  to  say  that  we  were  "  displeased  "  with 
what  was  recognised  to  be  an  act  of  God. 


76  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

But  this  mood  did  not  last.  The  king  looked  down 
from  his  fortress  night  and  day  upon  the  valley  in  which 
was  hidden  that  sacred  symbol  :  and  as  he  came  and  went 
beheld  on  his  way  the  empty  tabernacle,  the  folds  of  the 
closed  and  vacant  tent  where  he  had  meant  to  place  the 
venerable  token  of  God's  presence  with  his  people.  It  must 
have  become  a  growing  preoccupation,  an  eager  longing 
and  desire  ;  indeed,  from  this  period  the  fixed  idea  of  a 
House  of  God,  more  splendid  than  any  tent  or  tabernacle, 
seems  to  have  taken  possession  of  David's  mind.  And  then 
there  came  tales  of  how  everything  throve  in  the  house- 
hold of  the  man  who  had  given  to  that  sacred  symbol 
the  shelter  of  his  roof,  until  by  degrees  the  superstitious 
terrors  wore  off,  the  project  was  taken  up  again,  and  the 
wish  of  the  king's  heart  was  temporarily  fulfilled. 

A  feast  more  joyous  still  than  the  former  which 
ended  in  so  much  trouble,  made  the  shout  of  the  newly 
named  JERUSALEM  echo  to  the  skies,  as  all  the  splendour 
of  Israel,  everything  that  the  warlike  people  possessed 
of  glittering  armour  and  waving  ensigns,  and  many- 
coloured  robes,  in  the  brilliancy  yet  harmony  of  hues 
which  is  natural  to  the  East,  poured  down  into  the 
valley.  David  had  taken  advantage  of  the  pause  to 
secure  that  duly  qualified  and  appointed  persons  should 
be  there  to  convey  the  solemn  burden  to  its  place,  and 
satisfy  all  the  reverential  laws  which  hedged  about  the  sacred 
Ark  of  the  testimony.  The  white-robed  band  of  Levites  in 
the  midst  arranged  in  their  orders,  singers  and  harpists,  and 
all  the  fit  attendants,  with  the  priests  at  their  head,  must 
have  made  a  wonderful  shining  centre  to  all  the  dark  array 
of  the  mighty  men  of  valour,  the  captains  and  champions, 
sunburnt  with  their  life  in  the  wilderness,  who  were  insepar- 
able from  their  leader,  his  brothers-in-arms :  and  all  the 
commoner  train  that  crowded  after  them.  We  have  no  clear 
information  where  it  was  exactly  that  Obed-edom  and  his 
sons  wielded  their  flails,  while  the  winnowing  winds  through 
the  open  shed  drove  the  useless  chaff  away.  But  no  corn 
would  be  threshed  or  labour  of  the  field  go  on  on  that  great 


CHAP.  HI  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  77 

day.  All  the  way  up  to  the  city  gates  through  the  ravine, 
all  gay  with  many-coloured  crowds,  what  a  sight  to  see  that 
procession  wind ! — the  first  of  many  wonderful  sights,  the 
beginning  of  the  link  which  bound  the  lesser  hill  to  the 
loftier,  the  throne  of  national  worship  to  the  throne  of  the 
house  of  David.  And  as  the  choirs  mounted  towards  the 
city,  and  the  dark  escort  surrounded  their  white  ranks,  and 
the  dancers  marched  and  swayed  in  time,  this  was  how  the 
Levites  without  and  within  answered  to  each  other  and  sang  : 

Who  shall  ascend  into  the  hill  of  the  Lord  ? 
Who  shall  stand  in  His  holy  place .'' 

He  that  hath  clean  hands,  and  a  pure  heart  ; 
Who  hath  not  lifted  up  his  soul  unto  vanity, 
Nor  sworn  deceitfully. 

He  shall  receive  the  blessing  from  the  Lord, 
And  righteousness  from  the  God  of  his  salvation. 

This  is  the  generation  of  them  that  seek  Him, 
Of  them  that  seek  Thy  face, 
Even  of  the  house  of  Jacob. 

Lift  up  your  heads,  O  ye  gates  ; 
Be  ye  lifted  up,  ye  ancient  doors. 
That  the  King  of  glory  may  come  in. 

Who  is  this  King  of  glory  ? 
The  Lord  strong  and  mighty. 
The  Lord  mighty  in  battle. 

Lift  up  your  heads,  O  ye  gates  ; 
Lift  them  on  high,  ye  ancient  doors  ; 
And  the  King  of  glory  shall  come  in. 

Who  is  the  King  of  glory  ? 

The  Lord  of  hosts. 

He  is  the  King  of  glory. 

The  curious  story  which  follows  shows  us  from  some 
window  in  the  wall  a  woman  looking  out  upon  the  approach- 
ing procession,  a  woman  sad  at  heart,  torn  from  her  ancient 
surroundings,  brought  back  perhaps  to  a  husband  whom  she 
had  ceased  to  love,  expected  to  wear  a  face  of  joy  at  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  new  kingdom  over  the  ruins  of  her  father's 
house.      Michal  had   loved  David  and  saved  his  life  in   the 


78  .  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D  part  i 

early  days  of  their  devotion.  But  since  then  years  of  trouble 
and  change  had  elapsed  and  other  loves  had  taken  the 
place  of  that  romance.  She  had  been  restored  not  with- 
out reluctance  on  her  part,  forced  perhaps  by  the  extra- 
ordinary manners  of  the  time,  brought  back  with  weeping 
to  find  other  women  in  David's  house  and  a  crowd  of 
children  with  whom  she  had  nothing  to  do.  Her  heart, 
most  like,  was  weary  for  an  occasion  to  pour  forth  its  bitter- 
ness. And  when  Saul's  proud  daughter  saw  the  new  king 
leading  that  dance,  dressed  in  the  scanty  white  tunic  of  a 
priest  with  his  armour  and  his  splendour  laid  by,  all  these 
accumulated  griefs  burst  into  that  satire  and  ridicule  which 
are  the  sharpest  weapons  of  an  angry  woman.  "  How 
glorious  was  the  King  of  Israel  to-day  !  uncovering  himself 
in  the  eyes  of  the  handmaids  of  his  servants:" — lowest  vanity 
of  all,  to  please  the  miserable  women  who  were  not  worthy 
to  look  at  a  king,  seeking  their  admiration,  always  the 
bitterest  gibe  a  woman  can  find,  "  like  one  of  the  vain  fellows." 
Truth  to  say,  the  reader  in  these  distant  days  is  apt  to  agree 
with  Michal  in  her  scorn,  knowing  nothing  of  what  these 
dances  were,  or  of  the  conditions  in  which  they  were 
accounted  a  reverential  service.  David,  who  was  at  all 
times  a  man  of  fervent  emotions,  throwing  himself  into  the 
act  of  the  moment,  had  no  doubt  been  as  superior  to  the 
vile  motive  which  she  attributed  to  him  as  are  to  this  day 
many  men  on  whom  angry  kinsfolk  throw  like  aspersions — 
and  answered  indignantly  :  "  I  will  yet  be  more  vile  than 
this,  I  will  be  base  in  my  own  sight,"  he  cries.  "It  was 
before  the  Lord,  who  chose  me  before  thy  father,  and  before 
all  his  house."  This  altercation  breaks  painfully  into  the 
beautiful  scene  full  of  national  devotion  and  sacred  triumph, 
but  embittered,  as  so  often  happens,  by  domestic  discord. 
Michal  had  no  child  until  the  day  of  her  death.  She  re- 
mained alone  in  the  crowded  household  passionate  and  soured, 
she  who  had  been  the  hero's  first  love.  Let  us  hope  she 
had  not  left  children  behind  her  who  were  not  his  in  the 
distant  Gibeah  from  whence  she  had  been  torn.  But  prob- 
ably the  old   friends  who  looked   on,  distressed  at  this  bitter 


CHAP,  in  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  79 

breach,  were  helpless  to  intervene,  knowing,  as  we  say  to-day, 
that  on  both  sides  there  was  a  great  deal  to  be  said. 

David  had  now  attained  the  height  of  his  glory,  and  the 
people  of  Israel  had  entered  upon  that  period  in  which 
their  greatness  as  an  independent  and  united  nation  came  to 
a  climax.  On  every  side  enemies  were  subdued  and  neigh- 
bours conciliated,  and  the  full  force  of  the  promises  which 
gave  to  the  children  of  Abraham  if  not  full  possession,  at 
least  supremacy,  over  the  whole  land  of  Canaan,  began  at 
last  to  come  trup. 

It  was  probably  during  one  of  the  episodes  of  this  interval 
of  fighting,  before  the  final  conquest  of  the  Philistines,  when 
that  strong  and  warlike  people  had  spread  themselves  in  the 
valley  of  Rcphaim  while  David,  probably  unwilling  to  risk 
his  newly-acquired  stronghold,  had  gone  down  to  "  a  hold  " 
— perhaps  the  familiar  ground  of  those  old  caves  toward 
the  east  of  Judah,  with  which  his  warriors  were  so  well 
acquainted,  or  some  strong  natural  fort  thereabout  where 
his  headquarters  could  be  established  —  that  one  of  the 
most  romantic  incidents  of  his  career  took  place.  Day 
after  day  the  battle  raged,  irregular,  the  reinforcements  of 
the  foe  swarming  to  the  front,  with  ever-renewed  zeal. 
The  whole  country  would  seem  to  have  been  occupied  by 
them  ;  they  were  in  force  at  Bethlehem,  and  had  over- 
run all  the  fruitful  fields  and  peaceful  pastures  of  David's 
youth.  It  must  have  been  at  the  end  of  one  of  those 
continuous  days  of  fighting  when  tired  and  harassed,  not 
certain  what  was  the  response  of  the  Lord  to  his  prayers, 
he  sat  down  by  the  mouth  of  his  cave  and  sighed  for  a 
draught  of  that  water  from  the  well  at  the  gate  of  Beth- 
lehem which  had  refreshed  him  on  many  an  evening  when  he 
came  in  with  his  flock  from  the  distant  pastures.  As  tired 
as  the  king  himself,  as  hot  and  worn  with  the  conflict  of  the 
day,  must  have  been  the  three  mighty  men  of  valour  who 
overheard  the  exclamation  and  looked  at  each  other  with  a 
simultaneous  purpose,  true  brothers-in-arms  —  accustomed 
to  stand  by  each  other  shoulder  to  shoulder — knowing,  in 
the   true   humility   of  generous   souls,   that   the    king,   who 


8o  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D  '         part  i 

bore  the  burden  of  care  for  all,  was  of  more  value  than  all 
three  to  Israel  and  the  world.  They  must  have  stolen  out 
from  his  presence  into  the  night  breathless  with  that  common 
thought,  to  make  their  way  through  those  crowding  hosts 
with  whose  breathing  the  very  air  of  the  desert  was  heavy, 
and  heedless  of  watch  or  picket  about  Bethlehem,  to  the 
well  at  the  gate.  Eleazer  was  one  of  them,  he  who  has 
had  the  honour  of  being  selected  as  M.  Renan's  favourite  : 
and  two  others  whose  names  vary  in  the  record — Jashobeam 
the  son  of  Hachmoni,  and  Shammah  from  Harar,  men  who 
knew  every  step  of  the  way.  They  forced  their  passage 
through  the  night,  through  a  hundred  deaths,  like  knights 
of  the  Round  Table,  like  followers  of  Robert  Bruce  or  Coeur 
de  Lion.  The  entire  tale  is  pure  chivalry,  worthy  of  the 
age  in  which  such  sheer  devotion  was  the  ideal  of  the  spot- 
less character.  And  like  the  high  hero  of  the  poet's  dream, 
the  Arthur  who  never  was  by  sea  or  shore,  David  whom  we 
all  discuss  with  so  many  disparagements,  the  ambitious,  the 
schemer,  the  voluptuary — David  received  this  proof  of 
supreme  devotion  like  the  prince  and  poet  he  was.  "  My 
God  forbid  it  me,"  he  cries,  "  that  I  should  do  this  thing : 
shall  I  drink  the  blood  of  these  men  that  have  put  their 
lives  in  jeopardy  ?  for  with  the  jeopardy  of  their  lives  have 
they  brought  it."  No  drop  of  that  precious  cruse  was  for 
human  lips.  He  poured  it  out  before  the  Lord.  Where 
did  they  learn  this  sentiment,  unrevealed  to  the  gracious 
Greek  or  noble  Roman,  the  flower  of  Christian  devotion  and 
grace,  those  heroes  of  obscure  and  uncivilised  tribes,  the  sons 
of  herdsmen,  the  reivers  and  outlaws  of  the  desert  ?  This  is 
beyond  the  power  of  any  critic  or  commentator  to  tell. 

In  the  life  of  every  man,  whatever  he  may  be,  the  chief 
period  of  interest  is  that  of  struggle  and  suffering.  Of  the 
prosperous  life,  the  successions  of  good  fortune,  the  conquests 
and  the  triumphs,  there  is  little  to  say.  Who  cares  for  the 
addition  of  feoff  to  feoff,  and  victory  to  victory  ?  When  the 
hero  wades  deep  in  troubled  waters,  when  his  life  is  a  series 
of  hairbreadth  escapes  and  incessant  efforts,  then  it  is  that 
men  care  to  look  on,  to  mark  and  listen,  to  watch  with  long- 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  8i 

drawn  breath  the  successive  billows  that  roll  over  his  head, 
the  tide  that  threatens  to  submerge  him  altogether.  If  one 
might  risk  such  a  conjecture  as  that  the  innumerable  worlds 
which  form  the  universe  were  peopled  with  faithful  hosts  who 
have  never  broken  the  law  of  God  nor  been  placed  in  the 
conditions  of  temptation,  one  might  imagine  this  little  tragic 
earth,  the  abode  of  sorrow,  to  be  in  its  way,  to  that  great 
audience,  an  endless  centre  of  interest  and  spectatorship,  an 
unfolding  drama,  with  its  great  rolls  of  story  full  within  and 
without  of  lamentation  and  mourning.  It  is  the  common 
idea  of  humanity  that  its  own  extraordinary  and  incompre- 
hensible being  is  in  some  sort  the  centre  of  the  universe,  an 
idea  of  which  it  would  be  impossible  to  disabuse  the  primi- 
tive mind,  and  which  it  is  difficult  even  for  the  most  fully 
informed  to  forgo.  We  know  that  the  stars  are  greater 
worlds  than  our  own  and  that  they  are  innumerable  in  their 
greatness,  but  still  the  inalienable  poetry  of  nature  compels 
us  to  see  in  them  the  lights  that  fill  our  nights  with  beauty, 
the  spectators  of  our  wayward  courses.  It  may  be  that  we 
are  indeed  the  object  of  continual  interest  in  this  other  way. 
The  record  of  happiness  is  blank  :  the  moving  story,  the 
eloquence,  the  poetry,  even  the  keener  flashes  of  delight, 
must  all  be  the  accompaniments  of  mortal  distress.  We 
can  purchase  the  attention  of  the  spheres  in  no  other  way. 

And  in  David's  case  the  time  had  now  arrived  of  success 
and  widespreading  victory.  He  overcame  all  the  peoples 
round  him,  taking  homage  and  tribute  from  the  Moabites 
and  Philistines,  and  from  distant  Damascus,  the  renowned  city 
where  he  "  put  garrisons,"  bringing  from  it  golden  shields  and 
"  much  brass  "  :  a  curious  token  that  the  same  industry  which 
flourishes  still  in  that  ancient  and  wealthy  place,  was  already 
one  of  its  known  attributes.  One  can  imagine  the  Israelitish 
warriors,  unused  to  such  wonders,  prowling  about  the  great 
bazaars,  probably  little  different  from  those  of  to-day,  and 
gazing  amazed  at  the  glittering  wares  high  piled  upon  every 
side,  the  wonderful  carpets,  the  vessels  of  gold  and  silver,  the 
garments  woven  in  many  colours  :  carrying  off  that  for  the 
king,  and   this  to   gladden  the  eyes  of  these  daughters  of 

G 


82  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D  part  i 

Israel  who  would  greet  their  returning  steps  with  song  and 
pour  out  from  every  village  to  hail  the  conquerors. 

The  supremacy  of  David  soon  received  a  wide  acknow- 
ledgment, and  the  great  traders  of  Tyre,  perhaps  to  divert 
his  attention  from  their  wealth,  and  the  fact  that  they  had 
no  army  on  land  sufficient  to  resist  him,  offered  their  friend- 
ship, their  gifts,  and  skilful  workmen  to  build  the  king  a 
palace  worthy  his  great  name.  It  was  perhaps  the  first  intro- 
duction of  anything  that  could  be  called  luxury  into  the 
spare  dwellings  of  the  hitherto  but  partially  settled  tribes  : 
and  the  wonder  must  have  spread  through  the  little  rocky  city 
as  the  caravans  arrived  with  their  spoils,  and  the  Tyrians  with 
their  loads  of  cedar  :  and  the  great  hewn  stones,  Cyclopean 
masses  which  still  are  the  wonder  of  the  excavators  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  were  dragged  up  the  steep  slant  to  that 
mount  where  the  new  palace  walls  began  to  show,  a  miracle 
of  strength  and  beauty.  The  city  of  the  Jebusites  had  come 
to  as  great  promotion  as  had  the  king  himself  who  had  tended 
his  few  sheep  in  the  wilderness  some  dozen  years  before. 

The  decorations  of  his  new  house  abashed  David 
himself  in  all  the  elation  of  his  victories.  His  astonish- 
ment at  his  own  greatness  took  the  form,  in  a  mind  so 
open  to  all  generous  emotions,  of  compunction.  "  See 
now,  I  dwell  in  an  house  of  cedar,  but  the  Ark  of  God 
dwelleth  within  curtains,"  he  said  to  that  uncompromising 
prophet,  Nathan,  who  here  makes  his  earliest  appearance  in  the 
record.  Not  to  David,  however,  was  this  privilege  given. 
Nathan,  who  had  at  first  encouraged  his  wish  to  build  for  the 
Lord  a  still  nobler  palace  than  his  own,  came  back  to  his 
royal  patron  with  another  message,  full  of  grace  yet  of 
severity.  God  would  not  accept  the  offering  :  yet  He  rewarded 
the  intention  by  a  promise  to  establish  the  house  of  David, 
given  as  would  seem  in  compensation  for  the  refusal.  He 
would  not  accept  from  the  warrior  who  had  shed  much  blood, 
that  Temple  in  all  its  magnificence,  the  house  for  the  Lord, 
which  already  had  shaped  itself  in  his  fervent  imagination. 
Not  for  him,  with  blood  upon  his  hands,  was  this  great  and 
crowning  achievement  of  life  to  be.      To  the  poet,  framing  in 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  83 

his  mind  all  glorious  things,  who  had  already  begun  to  muse 
and  dream  of  the  great  walls,  the  fragrant  portals  of  cedar, 
the  wreathed  work  of  the  cornices  and  capitals,  this  was  no 
doubt  a  terrible  check  and  disappointment.  Many  years 
after  when  he  unfolded  his  plans  to  his  son  Solomon,  David 
described  all  the  decorations  which  he  desired  to  be  carried 
out  in  the  yet  unbuilt  Temple,  with  a  sigh  of  unaccomplished 
desire.  "  All  this,"  he  said,  "  the  Lord  made  me  understand 
in  writing  by  hand  upon  me,"  an  expression  in  which  there  is 
all  the  pathos  of  a  cherished  hope  unfulfilled. 

When  Nathan  left  him  after  this  interview  David  entered 
into  the  tent  where  the  Ark  dwelt  in  solemn  gloom  under  its 
curtains,  and  poured  out  his  soul  in  thanks  to  God,  who  had 
promised  to  establish  his  house  for  ever. 

Who  am  I,  O  Lord  God?  and  what  is  my  house. 

That  Thou  hast  so  brought  me  hitherto  ? 

Yet  was  this  but  a  small  thing  in  Thy  sight, 

O  Lord  God  ; 

But  Thou  hast  spoken  also  of  Thy  servant's  house 

For  a  great  while  to  come. 

And  is  this  the  manner  of  man, 

O  Lord  God  ? 

It  was  not  the  manner  of  man  :  and  yet  there  is  a 
poignant  note  of  pain  in  the  outpouring  of  thanksgiving. 
The  Lord  had  given  him  far  more  than  he  had  thought  of 
or  demanded,  not  only  a  son  to  sit  on  his  throne  after  him, 
but  an  everlasting  throne  to  be  established  for  ever,  the  throne 
of  a  greater  than  man  already  divinely  indicated  to  the  hopes 
of  the  world.  Yet  hidden  in  this  bountiful  giving  there  was 
a  withholding  which  wrung  David's  heart :  more  a  hundred 
times  than  he  could  have  asked  or  imagined,  but  not  the 
desire  of  his  soul.  He  had  had  his  share  of  glory,  the  glory  of 
great  fame  and  honour  and  incalculable  promotion,  the  renown 
of  a  great  leader  and  ruler.  He  had  established  the  dominion 
of  Israel,  and — crowning  happiness  in  the  eyes  of  an  Eastern 
prince — he  was  thus  proclaimed  father  of  a  never-ending  line 
of  kings  to  be  :  but  that  Temple  of  his  dreams,  more  glorious 
than  was  ever  built  with  hands,  that  great  psalm  erected  in 


84  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D  part  i 

everlasting  stone  and  lined  with  gold  and  filled  with  music, 
that  beautiful  imagination  was  refused  to  him.  To  know 
that  Solomon  should  do  it,  was  no  doubt  a  great  thing  :  but 
yet  a  man's  son,  though  dear,  is  not  himself.  His  was  the 
imagination,  his  the  heart  in  which  this  great  thought  had 
been  conceived  :  but  not  to  him  should  be  the  blessedness  of 
carrying  it  out.  His  thanksgiving  is,  we  cannot  but  feel, 
almost  aching  with  a  humility  and  pathetic  acknowledgment 
of  the  overwhelming  mercy  of  the  promise,  too  great  almost 
for  human  thanks,  yet  acute  with  an  unexpressed  pang  with- 
in. "  O  Lord  God,  Thou  hast  spoken  it ;  Thou  hast  revealed 
to  Thy  servant  '  I  will  build  Thee  an  house.'  "  But  in  the 
pouring  out  of  that  blessing  God  had  brought  his  servant  to  a 
sudden  pause.  It  was  not  for  him,  that  man  so  favoured,  to 
have  the  last  boon  which  above  all  things  he  desired  most. 

Thus  David  also  had  his  great  disappointment  in  the 
midst  of  all  his  glory  and  success. 

It  would  have  been  well  for  his  future  peace  had  the 
record  of  these  years  of  success  and  peaceful  consolidation 
of  the  kingdom,  varied  by  much  building  at  Jerusalem,  and 
increase  and  decoration  of  the  capital,  contained  no  darker 
story.  But  the  severe  impartiality  of  the  history  spares  David 
not  a  line  of  the  condemnation  due  to  him  :  although  it  is 
true  that  this  impartial  history  itself  says  not  a  word  either 
of  blame  or  praise — and  only  reflects  as  in  an  incorruptible 
mirror  the  incident  which  is  the  chief  reproach  of  his  life. 
By  this  time  he  had  retired  from  the  active  conduct  of  the 
wars  which  were  still  going  on  all  around  under  the  generalship 
of  the  redoubtable  Joab.  David  himself  had  been  prevented 
by  the  strong  remonstrance  of  his  counsellors  and  the  people 
generally  from  leading  his  own  army  as  in  former  times 
"  lest  thou  quench  the  light  of  Israel,"  and  had  yielded  to 
that  reasonable  prayer :  so  that  now  "  at  the  time  when 
kings  go  forth  to  battle,"  a  curious  indication  of  the  war- 
like habit  of  the  nations  round,  "  David  sent  Joab  and  his 
servants  with  him,  and  all  Israel  "  to  destroy  Ammon,  or 
whatsoever  other  work  of  the  kind  might  be  in  hand.  "  And 
David   sat   in  his  house  " — set  aside,  although   on   the  com- 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  85 

plimentary  argument  that  his  Hfe  was  too  valuable  to  be 
risked  :  and  dreamed  of  the  Temple  he  was  not  to  be  allowed 
to  build,  and  entered  in  all  the  force  of  his  mature  life  and 
passions  into  the  storm  of  fierce  temptation,  never  so  strong 
as  with  those  whose  active  life  has  thus  come  to  a  pause. 

There  were  in  those  days  no  scruples  in  Israel  as 
to  polygamy,  and  David  was  in  this  respect  very  far 
from  a  saint.  He  seems  to  have  celebrated  his  conquest 
of  Jerusalem,  for  instance,  by  taking  more  wives  out  of  the 
newly-acquired  city,  the  one  event  following  the  other  as  a 
natural  consequence  in  a  manner  almost  comic  to  our  eyes. 
But  to  take  into  his  house  the  wife  of  another  great  warrior, 
a  man  of  sufficient  importance  to  appear  among  the  list  of 
the  thirty  heroes,  was  a  more  serious  matter.  It  is  unfortu- 
nately in  all  history  an  incident  so  common  that  it  would 
scarcely  have  counted  as  a  reproach  in  any  other  literature, 
and  few  kings  have  the  right  to  throw  stones  at  David. 
But  the  careful  record  of  his  attempts  to  conceal  the  shame 
of  the  woman  and  avoid  the  vengeance  of  the  man  whom 
he  had  dishonoured,  brings  the  whole  matter  before  us  too 
clearly  to  be  ignored.  David  dared  not,  it  would  seem,  risk 
such  a  scandal  in  his  new  capital,  and  to  hide  his  guilt  had 
recourse  first  to  mean  expedients  and  then  to  a  bloody  and 
desperate  act.  Failing  in  all  attempts  to  seduce  Uriah,  he 
sent  to  Joab  in  the  field  that  commission  of  murder  and 
treachery.  "  Set  Uriah  in  the  forefront  of  the  hottest  battle." 
To  be  in  the  van  is  at  all  times  a  credit  for  a  soldier,  the  post 
of  honour,  as  of  danger :  probably  Uriah  was  made  to  feel 
himself  the  selected  champion,  and  so,  let  us  hope,  met  his 
death  gloriously  with  no  consciousness  of  the  shameful  cause. 

It  is  curious  to  remark  that  the  uncompromising  Joab, 
who  was  by  no  means  certain  to  give  to  his  master's  orders 
a  servile  obedience,  made  no  remonstrance  in  this  case  as  he 
did  so  often,  nor,  it  would  seem,  ever  asked  a  question.  He 
was  accustomed  to  carry  out  his  own  schemes  of  vengeance 
with  the  utmost  indifference  to  David's  opinions,  or  to  any 
motive  cither  of  mercy  or  policy  :  and  probably  he  took  it 
for  granted  that  this  was  a  personal  quarrel,  which  the  king 


86  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VID  part  i 

proposed  to  avenge  otherwise  than  by  his  own  hand  :  or  if 
he  had  any  information  on  the  subject  of  Bathsheba,  the 
motive  would  be  still  more  simple.  He  carried  out  the 
order  with  prosaic  straightforwardness,  and  a  certain  grim 
despatch  :  sending  back  the  king's  messenger  with  an  account 
of  the  proceedings  in  which  there  is  a  fine  irony  of  which 
David  could  not  but  be  conscious.  "  Tell  the  king "  such 
and  such  details,  says  Joab.  "  And  if  the  king's  wrath  arise, 
and  he  say  unto  thee.  Wherefore  approached  ye  so  nigh 
unto  the  city  when  ye  did  fight  ?  knew  ye  not  that  they 
would  shoot  from  the  wall  ?  then  say  thou.  Thy  servant 
Uriah  the  Hittite  is  dead  also." 

Who  can  venture  to  imagine  what  was  in  the  heart  of 
the  king  when  he  received  this  message  ?  He  was  a  man 
full  of  generous  impulses,  if  also  of  passion  and  determina- 
tion to  satisfy  all  his  desires.  There  was  a  hideous  pause 
during  which  the  wife  of  Uriah  mourned  for  her  husband, 
which  seems  to  the  reader  an  additional  horror  in  the 
mockery  of  sorrow.  But  let  us  hope  that  Bathsheba  knew 
nothing  about  the  cause  of  his  death,  and  that  even  the 
guilty  satisfaction  with  which  she  must  have  felt  that  this 
event  secured  her  own  safety,  would  stir  up  compunctions 
in  her  mind  and  make  the  mourning  not  all  a  pretence  and 
mockery.  To  enter  into  the  harem  of  the  king  in  such 
circumstances  would  be  not  unattended  by  trouble  we  may 
be  sure,  to  the  woman  whose  story  would  be  whispered  with 
many  a  commentary  from  one  to  another  by  those  free- 
spoken  women  of  Israel,  who,  notwithstanding  the  .bondage 
of  polygamy,  were  never  slow  to  express  their  opinions,  even 
to  their  lord  himself  But  for  David  there  was  reserved  a 
more  emphatic  condemnation.  The  incident  would  have 
been  swept  aside,  like  so  many  similar  incidents  in  the  lives 
of  kings,  perhaps  would  never  have  secured  a  mention  in 
the  chronicle,  but  for  the  Divine  reproof  that  followed.  If 
as  M.  Renan  ^  supposes  the  records  of  David's  life  were  taken 

1  That  great  authority  is  of  opinion  that  the  story  of  Uriali  is  a  mere  fable, 
though  he  does  not  tell  us  on  what  grounds — perhaps  as  a  compensation  to  David 
for  taking  his  Psalms  from  him  :  and  certainly  a  great  relief  to  all  our  minds 
could  we  take  M.  Kenan's  word  for  it. 


CHAP,  m  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  87 

from  his  own  account,  favourably  shaped  in  his  own  interest, 
it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  what  the  motive  could  be  for 
introducing  the  parable  of  Nathan  —  unless  that  the  poet 
gained  mastery  over  the  man,  and  David  felt  himself  incap- 
able of  keeping  back  a  story  so  instinct  with  poetry  and 
feeling.  The  king  was  in  the  flush  of  passion  satisfied,  and 
the  excitement  of  a  new  incident  in  the  life  of  comparative 
inactivity,  to  which  he  was  now  condemned,  when  Nathan 
appeared  charged  with  his  message.  The  prophet  came 
as  to  the  judge  of  Israel  bound  to  see  right  and  justice 
administered  everywhere,  with  his  brief  but  tremendous 
indictment. 

"  There  were  two  men  in  one  city  ;  the  one  rich,  and  the 
other  poor.  The  rich  man  had  exceeding  many  flocks  and 
herds  ;  but  the  poor  man  had  nothing,  save  one  little  ewe 
lamb,  which  he  had  bought,  and  nourished  up  ;  and  it  grew 
up  together  with  him,  and  with  his  children  :  it  did  eat  of 
his  own  meat,  and  drank  of  his  own  cup,  and  lay  in  his 
bosom,  and  was  to  him  as  a  daughter.  And  there  came 
a  traveller  unto  the  rich  man  ;  and  he  spared  to  take  of  his 
own  flock,  and  of  his  own  herd,  to  dress  for  the  wayfaring 
man  that  was  come  unto  him  ;  but  took  the  poor  man's 
lamb,  and  dressed  it  for  the  man  that  was  come  to  him." 
Nothing  could  add  to  the  beauty  and  simple  force  of  the 
parable.  It  has  become  for  all  time  the  protest  of  the 
weak,  the  strongest  plea  against  the  oppressor.  David  hasty 
and  generous  was  in  arms  in  a  moment  against  the  riithless 
tyrant.  "  His  anger  was  greatly  kindled  against  the  man  ; 
and  he  said  to  Nathan,  As  the  Lord  liveth,  the  man  that 
hath  done  this  thing  shall  surely  die.  And  Nathan  said 
to  David,  Thou  art  the  man." 

In  all  history  there  is  no  situation  more  striking — the 
prophet  strong  in  the  inspiration  of  his  message  from  on  high, 
probably  fired  also  with  human  indignation,  facing  the  all- 
powerful  Eastern  chief  in  whose  hands  were  life  and  death, 
the  royal  lover  who  had  shrunk  from  nothing  in  the  carrying 
out  of  his  desires.  If  there  ever  was  a  moment  in  which 
David  was  minded  to  strike  down   his  accuser,  there  is  no 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D 


sign  of  it  in  the  record.      That  fiery  arrow  went  to  his  heart. 
"  I  have  sinned  against  the  Lord,"  is  all  that  he  can  say. 

It  is  curious  to  note  the  character  of  the  immediate  chastise- 
ment, first  sign  and  symbol  of  much  more  to  come,  which  is 
said  to  have  followed.  The  loss  of  a  new-born  infant  would 
seem  but  a  small  matter  in  that  overflowing  Eastern  house, 
swarming  with  the  sons  of  the  king  ;  yet  no  father  of  one 
sole  heir  and  hope  could  have  felt  it  more  deeply  than 
David  appears  to  have  done.  As  he  lies  on  the  ground  in 
an  agony  of  humiliation  and  prayer  all  the  night  through, 
beseeching  God  for  the  life  of  his  child,  absorbed  and 
swallowed  up  in  his  penitence  as  he  was  before  in  his  plea- 
sure, the  heart  of  the  reader  melts  over  the  stricken  man. 
His  punishment  was  far  from  being  over  in  the  death  of  that 
innocent.  Absalom  lay  before  him  in  his  way,  and  Amnon, 
and  many  a  grief  connected  with  his  children  :  not  easily  or 
lightly  was  his  expiation  to  be  made  :  but  no  man,  and  still 
less  any  woman,  wJio  has  passed  through  such  a  vigil,  will 
refuse  the  tribute  of  sympathy  to  David.  What  was  one 
little  life  among  so  many  ?  but  of  each  was  it  not  possible 
that  he  was  the  chosen  one,  the  seed  of  David  who  was  to 
sit  upon  David's  throne  for  ever  ?  When  all  was  over,  and 
he  rose  from  his  prostration  in  that  calm  which  his  astonished 
servants  could  not  understand,  those  words,  with  which 
millions  of  bereaved  parents  have  endeavoured  to  staunch 
their  wounds,  fell  from  David's  lips  :  "  I  shall  go  to  him  ;  but 
he  shall  not  return  to  me."  The  child  had  a  better  fate  than 
that  of  any  king's  son  :  the  father  went  out  to  his  duties  a 
changed  and  sobered  man. 

The  very  next  step  in  his  career  plunges  him  into 
his  more  real  and  bitter  punishment,  into  those  troubles 
of  a  father  among  a  tumultuous  company  of  high- 
spirited  and  privileged  young  men,  which  the  father  of 
princes  can  perhaps  best  understand,  but  which  are  not 
unknown  to  humbler  spheres.  That  "  evil  against  him  out 
of  his  own  house "  which  Nathan  had  denounced  was  not 
slow  to  come.  It  is  impossible  to  understand  the  story,  so 
painful  and  revolting  to  our  ears,  of  Amnon  and  Tamar,  nor 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  89 

how  it  could  be  possible  that  a  legitimate  and  permitted  bond 
could  exist  between  the  son  and  daughter,  even  though  by 
different  mothers,  of  the  same  man.  But  the  vengeance  of 
Absalom  is  quite  comprehensible,  justifiable  indeed  according 
to  every  rule  of  that  primitive  period.  It  opens  to  us  another 
glimpse  of  the  economy  of  Israel  and  the  manners  of  the  time. 
It  would  seem  that  Absalom  was  in  special  favour  with 
his  father,  one  of  the  chief  among  the  king's  sons,  to  all  of 
whom  in  his  excess  of  parental  love  David  was  over-indulgent. 
His  mother  was  a  king's  daughter,  who  must  have  caught 
the  roving  eye  of  David  in  his  raid  from  Ziklag  against  the 
kingdom  of  Geshur  :  and  he  was  himself  the  most  handsome 
and  distinguished  of  all  his  contemporaries,  "  without  blemish 
from  the  crown  of  his  head  to  the  sole  of  his  foot,"  a  son 
of  whom  any  father  might  be  proud.  Probably  his  birth  on 
his  mother's  side  designated  him  more  or  less  surely  as  the 
heir,  notwithstanding  Amnon's  seniority  :  and  he  must  have 
been  able  and  ambitious  as  well  as  distinguished  in  other  ways. 
The  party  of  pleasure,  which  he  made — a  sheep-shearing, 
which  was  the  great  festival  of  the  time,  upon  his  pastoral 
farm  at  Baal-hazor,  near  Ephraim — is  the  first  note  of  his 
individual  story  after  his  reception  of  his  unfortunate  sister. 
It  would  be  strange  if  some  spectators  in  Jerusalem  had  not 
.seen  the  outraged  Tamar  go  weeping  by,  with  dust  upon 
her  head,  and  the  fair  apparel  of  the  king's  daughter  rent  in 
the  anguish  of  her  shame,  or  known  of  her  abode,  in  solitude 
and  sadnes.s,  in  her  brother's  house.  But  the  doer  of  the 
wrong  had  evidently  escaped  punishment:  and  was  not  afraid, 
which  is  still  more  remarkable,  to  trust  himself  in  the  power 
of  the  brother  whom  he  had  thus  grievously  insulted. 

The  young  men  went  down  out  of  Jerusalem  joyously 
to  their  merrymaking,  each  with  his  little  retinue  of  familiars, 
his  counsellor  and  henchman  at  his  elbow,  making  the  streets 
gay  with  their  finery  and  their  jests.  Jerusalem  by  this  time 
had  blossomed  into  something  very  different  from  that  strait 
little  city  of  the  Jebusites.  David's  great  new  palace  blazed 
in  the  sun  upon  the  height,  and  the  new  wealth,  the  constant 
acquisition  of  territory,  the  tributes  and  offerings  of  the  people 


90  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D  part  i 

pouring  into  his  treasury,  had  no  doubt  made  itself  felt  in  the 
expansion  of  all  his  surroundings.  He  had  built  houses 
innumerable  for  the  officials  and  chiefs  who  surrounded  him, 
and  filled  the  town  with  swarming  inhabitants  and  enlarged 
it  on  every  side.  It  was  "  builded  as  a  city  that  is  compact 
together  "  according  to  a  later  description,  and  must  have  been 
surrounded  with  new  and  enlarged  fortifications,  walls  and 
ramparts  from  which  the  watchman  could  sweep  the  whole 
country,  and  the  surrounding  valleys  both  north  and  south. 
Winding  along  through  the  pleasant  fields  on  the  comparative 
level  of  the  northern  side,  the  group  of  gay  young  cavaliers 
must  have  been  a  cheerful  sight  to  the  gazers  who  came  out 
to  the  gates  after  them  to  see  the  revellers  pass  by.  The  king 
himself  had  refused — -as  probably  it  was  certain  he  would  do — 
the  invitation  of  his  son,  with  a  smile  and  a  blessing.  The  joys 
of  youth  were  by  this  time  over  for  David,  and  he  and  his 
graver  court  would  have  been  a  hindrance  to  the  rustic  mirth 
and  jollity.  Young  Solomon  was  in  all  likelihood  but  an 
open-eyed  all-observant  child,  of  no  account,  not  thought  of 
among  the  festivities  of  the  elders,  when  the  king  watched  his 
beautiful  boy,  that  gallant  son  of  whom  he  was  so  proud,  with 
his  abundant  locks  upon  his  shoulders,  setting  off  down  the 
stony  street.  There  is  perhaps  a  more  exquisite  pleasure  in 
sending  forth  the  children  in  their  glory  and  joy  of  youth, 
than  there  was  in  that  joy  when  possessed  by  ourselves. 
David  must  have  turned  back  to  his  graver  life  with  the 
smile  and  the  blessing  still  upon  his  lips. 

But  very  different  was  the  return.  Towards  the  evening, 
while  it  was  scarcely  yet  time  to  look  for  the  home-coming 
of  the  revellers,  a  hasty  post  came  wildly  up  the  hill,  with 
clang  of  hoofs  and  breathless  shout  of  evil  tidings — the 
king's  sons  all  killed,  the  sheep-shearing  turned  into  a  car- 
nage. Before  it  reached  David  the  cry  had  become  more 
definite.  "  Absalom  has  slain  all  the  king's  sons,  and  there 
is  not  one  of  them  left."  The  king  heard  the  evil  news, 
and  it  would  seem  did  not  doubt  or  question.  Was  Absalom 
so  masterful,  so  intent  upon  being  the  first,  that  there  was 
something   in  it  which   sounded   possible,  even   likely,  to  the 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  91 

father's  heart  ?  He  tore  his  garments  and  threw  himself  on 
the  earth  in  his  despair,  while  all  the  servants  stood  weeping 
round.  The  king's  nephew,  however,  Jonadab,  interposed 
the  voice  of  reason.  We  feel  with  indignation  that  he  was 
the  last  who  should  have  dared  to  speak,  since  it  was  he 
who  had  counselled  Amnon  to  the  crime  which  had  now 
received  its  punishment.  Was  he  jealous  of  the  king's  sons 
and  plotting  their  destruction,  this  "  subtil  man "  who  had 
pretended  to  be  Amnon's  friend  ?  He  consoled  David  by 
heightening  the  certainty  at  least  of  a  portion  of  the  disaster. 
"  Let  not  my  lord  suppose  that  they  have  slain  all  the  young 
men,  the  king's  sons  ;  for  Amnon  only  is  dead.  By  the 
appointment  of  Absalom  this  has  been  determined."  Perhaps 
this  adviser  of  evil  was  the  confidant  of  both  :  at  least  he 
divined  what  must  have  happened. 

While  he  spoke  the  watchman  came  in  with  news 
that  a  train  of  many  people  was  coming  up  "  by  the 
way  of  the  hill  -  side  behind,"  a  roundabout  perhaps 
adopted  in  their  panic  to  deceive  the  possible  pursuer  :  and 
immediately  there  burst  into  the  hall  the  frightened  and 
breathless  company  of  the  young  men  who  had  left  home 
so  gaily.  "  They  lifted  up  their  voice  and  wept  sore  :  and 
the  king  and  all  his  servants  wept."  They  were  safe,  but 
one  brother  was  dead,  and  one  fled  with  the  stain  of  blood 
upon  him.  There  would  be  among  that  distracted  group 
some  for  Amnon  and  some  for  Absalom  :  the  brother  who 
had  brought  shame  on  the  whole  family  and  the  brother 
who  had  avenged  that  shame  so  bitterly  :  but  they  were  all 
probably  very  young  and  in  their  sudden  terror  unfit  for 
anything  but  flight.  And  was  it,  perhaps,  already  floating 
through  all  minds  that  the  foolish  indulgence  of  David, 
who  had  not  chastised  the  crime  of  the  first,  was  thus  to 
blame  for  the  whole  catastrophe  ?  but  on  these  points  we 
can  but  conjecture,  the  record  says  nothing.  Amnon  was 
the  firstborn  of  David's  sons,  and  perhaps  that  distinction 
made  it  more  difficult  for  him  to  visit  one  who  was  next  to 
the  head  of  the  house,  and  held  a  certain  right  of  authority 
over  the  others,  with  the  punishment  he  deserved.      It  was 


92  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

also  no  doubt  an  additional  motive  to  Absalom  in  whose 
heart  the  hope  of  succeeding,  if  not  already  the  idea  of 
superseding  his  father  had  taken  root,  to  remove  his  elder 
brother  out  of  his  way. 

This  was  the  beginning  of  the  tragedy  which  over- 
shadowed the  remainder  of  David's  life  and  brought  him 
into  affliction  and  downfall  greater  than  in  all  the  troubles 
of  his  youth  he  had  ever  known.  Jerusalem,  after  the  time 
of  mourning  was  over  which  filled  her  lately  rejoicing  streets 
with  woe,  came  back  to  her  usual  aspect  and  went  on  with 
her  building  and  thriving,  covering  the  hill-side  with  new 
houses,  extending  her  boundaries  day  by  day,  welcoming- 
back  her  armies  crowned  with  victory,  and  her  visitors  who 
came,  with  designs  and  ornamental  works,  from  all  the 
regions  in  which  art  flourished  to  show  what  they  could  do 
to  the  king.  The  city  throve,  the  kingdom  increased  in 
extent  and  order,  the  soldiers  of  Israel  and  their  general 
returned  to  their  homes  in  the  stormy  season,  and  went 
forth  with  their  banners  flying  in  the  spring.  The  natural 
course  and  order  of  all  things  went  on  as  before.  But  the 
King  of  Israel  in  his  house  of  cedar,  the  palace  that  shone 
in  the  sunshine,  was  cheered  neither  by  conquest  nor  tribute, 
nor  by  the  vessels  of  gold  and  silver  which  he  was  laying  up, 
nor  the  plans  which  he  was  drawing  out  for  the  future  house 
of  God.  His  heart  was  heavy  for  his  children,  not  only  for 
Amnon  dead,  but  for  Absalom  in  exile,  whose  gallant 
presence  he  missed  at  every  point  and  for  whom  he  sighed 
night  and  day,  although  justice  forbade  him  to  call  the 
sinner  back.  No  doubt  there  would  be  many  besides 
David  who  sighed  for  Absalom,  his  mother,  and  his  friends, 
and  the  populace  which  loved  him,  and  remembered  with 
pride  and  regret  his  beauty  and  his  graciousness,  and  did 
not  condemn  too  severely  the  vengeance  which  commended 
itself  to  every  wild  law  of  natural  justice. 

Absalom  in  the  meantime  had  sought  refuge  with  his 
mother's  brother  at  Geshur,  still,  it  would  appear,  in  its  small 
way  an  independent  kingdom  ;  and  three  melancholy  years 
elapsed,  during  which  "  the  soul  of  King  David  longed  to  go 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  93 

forth  "  to  his  banished  son,  but  could  not  withdraw  his  sen- 
tence from  the  murderer  of  his  brother.  The  blunt  and 
uncourtly  Joab  perceived  the  state  of  affairs  when  laid  up  in 
winter  quarters  in  enforced  leisure,  no  fighting  practicable  in 
the  stormy  season,  when  the  rains  flooded  the  great  rivers, 
and  wild  winds  dashed  every  tent  to  the  ground.  He  might 
feel  that  nothing  he  could  himself  say  in  his  stubborn  way 
would  much  affect  the  matter,  and  yet  that  he  must  do  some- 
thing to  cut  the  knot.  His  expedient  was  full  of  the  sim- 
plicity yet  primitive  wisdom  of  the  time.  He  sent  a  wise 
woman  to  David  as  he  sat  sad  and  moody  in  the  place  of 
judgment,  with  a  simulated  story.  Her  two  sons  had 
quarrelled  in  the  field  with  no  one  near  to  act  as  peacemaker, 
and  one  had  killed  the  other  ;  and  now  her  whole  kindred 
had  risen  against  her,  desiring  vengeance,  and  the  life  of  her 
only  remaining  child  was  in  deadly  peril.  David  listened  no 
doubt  with  many  a  sad  thought  in  his  own  heart,  and 
promised  her  protection  for  her  son  ;  whereupon  the  woman 
put  forth  her  trembling  plea  for  Absalom.  "  The  king,"  she 
said  with  that  boldness  which  the  women  seemed  to  share 
with  the  prophets,  though  their  sex  was  but  a  small  protec- 
tion to  them  in  those  primitive  times,  "  the  king  doth  speak 
this  thing  as  one  that  is  faulty,  in  that  the  king  doth  not 
fetch  home  again  his  banished." 

How  could  he  punish  her  who  advised  him  to  do  what  his 
soul  most  desired?  David  divined  the  hand  of  Joab  in 
the  contrivance  and  was  not  angry.  Joab  no  doubt  had 
done  what  he  could  to  plead  the  cause  of  Absalom  before, 
and  now  he  had  his  reward  and  was  sent  to  bring  the  exile 
home.  It  is  evident  that  David  never  loved  the  son  of 
Zeruiah  of  whom  he  speaks  in  angry  bitterness,  always  in 
the  plural  as  if  he  were  a  tribe,  probably  because  the 
brethren  were  involved  in  Joab,  thinking  and  acting  with 
him,  .so  as  to  give  to  his  single  personality  the  force  of 
.several  men.  But  there  was  a  great  deal  of  ingratitude  in 
this  dislike,  for  Joab's  rough  good  sense  and  sagacity  were  of 
use  to  him  often  in  the  great  crises  of  his  life.  It  is  doubtful 
if  this  was  good  advice  which  he  offered  now  ;  but  it  would 


94  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

not  seem  that  any  one  as  yet  had  suspected  the  ambitious 
side  of  Absalom's  character.  He  had  been  the  representative 
of  grace  and  all  that  was  beautiful  and  noble  in  youth,  an 
ornament  to  the  too  abundant  family  and  undeveloped  court. 
But  most  likely  nobody  had  taken  the  handsome  youth 
seriously  until  that  deed  of  blood  which  distinguished  him 
still  more  effectually  than  his  good  looks  and  royal  parentage, 
from  among  the  crowd  of  his  brethren — or  indeed  thought 
of  that  action  now  as  anything  but  a  well-deserved  and  not 
dishonourable  revenge. 

Two  years  of  humiliation  followed  during  which  Absalom, 
though  permitted  to  inhabit  Jerusalem,  was  not  allowed  to 
enter  his  father's  house,  or  see  his  face,  years  which  were  no 
doubt  more  hard  upon  the  king  who  loved  his  son  than  upon 
the  .son  who  was  plotting  how  best  to  overthrow  his  father's 
throne.  It  is  difficult  to  account  for  so  long-continued  a 
punishment  in  this  case,  while  Amnon  had  been  allowed  to 
go  free.  Was  it  that  an  injury  to  a  woman  counted  for 
so  much  less,  even  in  Israel  ?  but  this  was  not  according  to 
the  law,  which  showed  a  singular  impartiality  in  that  respect  ; 
or  was  it  because  his  firstborn  was  more  or  less  out  of  David's 
power  ?  for  that  he  did  not  love  Absalom  less  but  rather 
more  is  apparent  from  every  line  of  the  record.  Perhaps  the 
very  love  he  bore  the  offender  was  a  reason  for  special 
severity,  his  sense  of  the  necessity  of  justice  being  intensified 
by  the  weakness  and  yearning  of  his  own  paternal  heart.  At 
last,  however,  upon  the  mediation  again  of  Joab  the  last 
barrier  was  thrown  down.  During  this  long  period  when 
the  guilty  son  of  the  royal  house  was  in  Jerusalem,  but 
unacknowledged  by  his  father,  many  unsuspected  intrigues 
were  going  on,  and  the  young  man  must  have  drawn  about 
him  a  sort  of  secondary  court  of  the  disappointed  and  dis- 
contented, such  a  court  as,  in  our  own  history,  a  Prince  of 
Wales  has  sometimes  held,  full  of  dissatisfaction  and  bitter- 
ness, of  open  ridicule  and  suppressed  rebellion,  and  of  those 
gibes  which  the  populace  loves.  David  and  his  old-fashioned 
ways,  his  poetry,  his  music,  his  inactivity,  his  continual  poring 
over  those  plans  for  the  impossible   Temple,  his  encourage- 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  95 

mcnt  of  foreign  artists,  filling  Jerusalem  with  useless  dilet- 
tantism, taking  the  bread  out  of  his  warriors'  mouths,  would 
no  doubt  be  the  subject  of  many  a  lampoon,  whispered  from 
guest  to  guest,  with  bursts  of  profane  laughter.  Who  was  to 
carry  out  those  plans  and  put  away  all  that  treasure  from 
the  use  of  those  who  were  young  and  full  of  the  faculty  of 
enjoyment  ?  Not  Absalom  one  might  be  sure,  who  loved  to 
have  everything  beautiful  and  splendid  about  him,  and  had 
all  the  royal  instincts  of  magnificence  which  David,  humbly 
born,  directed  to  that  dream  of  a  house  of  God.  And  the 
people  who  loved  David  in  reality,  yet  never  can  resist  the 
influence  of  such  jests,  no  doubt  laughed  too,  pleased  to 
make  that  harmless  rebellion  against  constituted  authority, 
and  full  of  malicious  hostility  to  the  foreigners,  the  artists 
who  would  be  closeted  with  the  king  for  hours  while  even 
his  own  son  was  kept  out.  And  all  that  was  young  and 
gay  would  collect  about  Absalom  who  had  pleasure  and 
advancement  to  bestow  in  the  future,  and  for  the  present  a 
lively  youthful  house  full  of  sport  and  brightness,  instead  of 
those  sober  chambers  of  the  monarch  where  care  dwelt  and 
serious  thought. 

When  the  embargo  was  removed  from  this  dangerous 
prince,  and  the  king  had  received  him  with  ill -deserved 
effusion  of  long-suppressed  love,  Absalom  became  bolder 
still.  He  set  up  a  household  beyond  the  pretensions  even 
of  a  Prince  of  Wales,  like  a  king,  with  aQ  army  of  running 
footmen  when  he  went  forth  to  clear  the  way  before  him, 
and  all  the  tokens  of  Oriental  greatness.  He  had  learned 
that  fashion  no  doubt  at  his  uncle's  court  at  Geshur,  where 
the  uses  of  royalty  were  more  firmly  established  than  among 
the  democratic  Hebrews.  And  he  took  another  step  of  such 
cruel  policy  that  the  hand  of  Ahithophel,  the  wisest  of  the 
Israelites,  must  have  been  already  in  it,  though  that  great 
counsellor  was  not  yet  openly  on  Absalom's  side.  He 
made  a  practice  of  going  out  to  the  gate  where  it  was  the 
king's  duty  to  sit  in  judgment  and  hear  all  the  cases  that 
were  brought  before  him,  placing  himself  in  all  his  bravery, 
and  with  his  gracious  bearing,  in  the  way  of  the  litigants. 


96  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

It  is  implied  though  not  said  that  David  had  become 
perhaps  careless  of  this  duty,  came  seldom  to  the  seat  of 
justice,  was  more  and  more  preoccupied  and  absorbed,  as 
it  would  be  the  policy  of  the  plotters  to  represent,  with  that 
Temple  of  his,  and  his  plan  of  hiding  away  for  its  future 
use  or  ornament  all  the  treasures  of  gold  and  silver  in 
the  public  treasury,  from  being  of  any  use  to  the  people. 
Outside  the  gates  upon  the  open  square  where  travellers 
paused  to  take  breath  after  the  steep  climb  upwards,  what 
a  sight  to  see  would  be  that  young  prince,  the  handsomest 
man  in  Israel,  with  his  train  of  followers  !  and  so  friendly 
in  his  splendour,  stepping  forward  to  inquire  "  Of  what  city 
art  thou  ? "  nay,  more  courteous  still,  to  give  the  kiss  of 
peace  to  those  who  paid  him  the  tokens  of  respect  due  to 
his  position,  and  to  ask  what  was  their  business,  to  hear 
their  case,  to  commiserate  their  grievance  whatever  it  was, 
and  agree  that  they  were  right,  with  only  the  deep  regret 
"  Oh  that  I  were  judge,  that  I  might  do  justice ! "  and 
shaking  of  the  head  over  the  sad  fact  that  there  was  no 
man  deputed  from  the  king  to  hear,  or  stranger  still  that 
no  man  from  the  king  downward  would  listen  to  the  plaints 
of  the  people.  "  So  Absalom  stole  the  hearts  of  the  men 
of  Israel." 

It  was  not  within  Jerusalem,  however,  that  the  rebellion 
broke  forth.  Notwithstanding  Absalom's  popularity  and 
wiles,  David  was  too  firmly  seated  in  his  own  city,  tiie 
place  which  he  had  changed  from  a  fortified  village  into 
the  capital  of  a  kingdom,  to  be  cast  violently  off  his  throne 
there.  The  rebel  pleaded  a  vow  which  he  had  taken  to 
perform  sacrifices  at  Hebron,  and  received  his  father's  per- 
mission to  leave  Jerusalem  for  that  purpose  with  a  strong 
following,  all  his  own  intimates  and  their  trains,  and  two 
hundred  men  in  addition  who  apparently  formed  the  escort 
of  the  pretended  pilgrims.  Some  time  elapsed  before  it 
became  known  in  Jerusalem  what  this  expedition  meant, 
and  then  we  must  suppose  from  his  after  conduct  that  it 
burst  like  a  thunderbolt  upon  David,  who  had  either  been 
unaware  of  all   that  was   happening,  or  had   turned   a  deaf 


CHAP.  Ill  TIJE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  97 

ear  to  any  further  accusation  against  his  son  after  having 
been  separated  from  him  so  long.  The  conduct  of  David 
seems  unaccountable  in  this  sudden  and  great  emergency. 
Not  a  thought  of  resistance  or  the  maintenance  of  his  own 
right  seems  to  have  been  in  him,  nothing  of  the  spirit  of  the 
old  warrior.  It  is  true  that  he  was  already  an  old  man  ; 
but  that  does  not  seem  to  account  for  the  complete  collapse, 
not  only  of  power,  but  of  spirit,  in  him.  The  first  thoughts 
in  his  mind  when  he  heard  that  his  son  was  in  open  revolt 
were  those  of  terror  and  submission.  "  Arise,  and  let  us 
flee ;  for  we  shall  not  else  escape  from  Absalom  :  make 
speed  to  depart,  lest  he  overtake  us  suddenly,  and  bring 
evil  upon  us,  and  smite  the  city  with  the  edge  of  the  sword." 
The  one  word  of  generous  feeling  in  this,  the  desire  to  pre- 
serve Jerusalem  from  the  horrors  of  a  siege  and  the  vengeance 
of  the  successful  rebels,  is  the  only  thing  that  softens  the 
reader's  amazement  and  almost  contempt.  The  great  David, 
the  hero  of  so  many  fights,  the  conqueror  not  of  Jerusalem 
alone  but  of  so  many  lands  and  cities,  he  who  had  been 
celebrated  in  song  in  his  very  boyhood  as  the  slayer  of 
tens  of  thousands — that  he  should  rise  and  fly  without  a 
word  or  attempt  at  holding  his  own  is  so  extraordinary 
that  the  spectator  can  but  look  on  aghast. 

What  was  it  that  took  all  the  strength  out  of  the  old 
warrior  ?  Was  it  those  long  years  of  inactive  life,  the 
creeping  sloth  of  age,  the  loss  of  every  habit  of  enterprise, 
the  preoccupation  with  other  things  ?  Had  his  essays  in 
art,  his  pattern  drawing,  his  plans  of  architecture,  taken 
the  spirit  out  of  the  old  hero  ?  But  even  in  an  old  war- 
horse,  full  of  years  and  corn,  there  will  still  remain  the  ashes 
of  his  former  fires.  One  cannot  but  feel  that  there  must 
have  been  more  in  it,  the  sense  of  a  long-deferred,  but  all 
the  more  potent,  punishment,  that  evil  out  of  his  own  house 
which  had  been  promised  to  him  many  years  before  when 
he  himself  was  in  the  heyday  of  life.  He  had  thought,  and 
perhaps  Nathan  his  instructor  had  also  thought,  that  the 
death  of  Bathsheba's  infant  was  a  sufficient  blow  to  a  father 
so  exceptionally  tender :   but  what  words  were  those  which 

H 


98  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VID  tart  i 

came  back  now,  echoing  in  his  ears  ?  "  Therefore  the  sword 
shall  never  depart  from  thine  house."  "  Evil  shall  be  raised 
up  against  thee  out  of  thine  own  house."  "  Thou  didst  it 
secretly  :  but  I  will  do  this  thing  before  all  Israel,  and  before 
the  sun." 

Who  can  doubt  that  these  threatenings  were  in 
David's  ears  ?  and  that  the  sense  that  not  only  Absalom, 
his  cherished  son — a  thought  in  itself  enough  to  crush  the 
father's  heart — but  the  Lord  was  against  him,  took  all  strength 
out  of  his  spirit  ?  What  sight  more  sad  was  ever  seen  than 
that  melancholy  train  hurrying  out  of  the  protecting  walls 
which  he  had  built  and  strengthened,  leaving  behind  the 
desolated  house  which  he  had  built  for  his  dynasty,  himself 
and  his  sons  after  him,  the  palace  and  the  city  of  David  ? 
What  a  different  place  was  that  which  he  left  with  a  wail 
of  trouble  rising  round  him,  from  the  strait  little  city  of 
which  he  had  taken  possession  so  many  years  before  !  He 
had  enlarged  it  on  every  side,  embellished  and  enriched  it, 
made  it  the  centre  of  law,  the  chief  city  of  Palestine,  already 
the  glory  and  the  pride  of  Israel.  There  is  not  a  word  to 
say  that  the  inhabitants  rose  against  him  in  his  distress. 
His  guards  were  faithful  to  him,  the  Cherethites,  the  Pelcthites, 
and  the  Gittites,  the  Swiss  Guards,  so  to  speak,  whom  he 
had  banded  about  him  to  keep  the  peace  and  defend  the 
city  when  the  soldiers  of  Israel  were  at  the  wars.  The 
captain  of  these  mercenaries  is  the  cause  indeed  of  one  of 
the  pauses  in  David's  evidently  hopeless  flight.  "  Return 
to  thy  place,  and  abide  with  the  king,"  he  says  with  the 
strangest  instantaneous  abdication  of  that  dignity  in  his 
own  person.  "  For  thou  art  a  stranger,  and  also  an  exile. 
Whereas  thou  camest  but  yesterday,  why  should  I  this  day 
make  thee  go  up  and  down  with  us  ?  seeing  I  go  whither 
I  may,  return  thou,  and  take  back  thy  brethren  :  and  mercy 
and  truth  be  with  thee."  We  recognise  our  generous  hero 
of  the  Adullam  days,  the  magnanimous  young  soldier  who 
never  sacrificed  a  friend,  in  this  episode  :  and  it  is  good  to 
feel  that  the  brave  Gittite  was  worthy  of  the  consideration, 
and  faithful  to  his  protector. 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  99 

Something  of  the  same  care  for  others  mingling  with 
a  reverential  unwillingness  to  disturb  the  worship  of  God, 
must  have  been  in  David's  mind  when  he  sent  back  the  Ark 
which  the  priests  and  Levites  had  brought  out  of  the  city, 
and  set  down  probably  on  the  platform  before  the  gate,  in 
imitation  of  the  days  when  that  sacred  Ark  was  posted  in 
the  middle  of  the  way  until  the  marshalled  ranks  of  Israel 
had  gone  over — whether  Jordan  or  other  dangerous  passes  : 
once  more  the  priests,  the  descendants  of  Aaron,  set  down 
their  sacred  burden  while  the  troubled  train  poured  forth 
"  until  all  the  people  had  done  passing  out  of  the  city." 
Hut  David  with  his  old  compunction  returning  in  all  the 
despair  of  remorse  into  his  heart,  would  not  assume  for 
himself  the  position  of  that  ancient  Israel,  the  people  of 
the  Lord,  travelling  under  His  sanction  and  guardianship. 
How  could  a  guilty  wanderer  flying  from  the  vengeance 
that  had  been  denounced  upon  him  lay  that  flattering 
unction  to  his  soul  ?  It  seems  to  have  brought  a  faint 
glimmer  of  hope,  however,  into  his  mind  to  see  the  sacred 
symbol  and  feel  that  the  sympathies  of  the  priests  were 
with  him  ;  for  a  thought  of  coming  back  breaks  in  now  for 
the  first  time  into  his  despair.  "  Carry  back  the  Ark  of 
God  into  the  city,"  he  says.  "  If  I  find  favour  in  the  eyes 
of  the  Lord,  He  will  bring  me  again,  and  shew  me  both  it 
and  His  habitation." 

The  mournful  procession  must  have  paused  while  the 
priests  took  up  their  burden,  and  turned  sadly  back  :  and 
David  stood  gazing  after  it,  with  death  in  his  heart.  Was 
it  for  this  he  had  brought  it  back  out  of  the  neglect  and 
indifference  of  many  years,  for  this  that  he  had  bidden 
those  ancient  narrow  portals  to  be  lifted  up,  the  old  doors  to 
be  thrown  open  to  their  widest,  that  the  King  of  Glory  might 
come  in  ?  But  on  what  side  now  was  that  King  of  Glory  ? 
against  David  as  his  own  beloved  son  was  against  David, 
and  all  the  vials  of  wrath  poured  out  upon  his  head.  Very 
different  now  were  those  great  gates  and  lofty  columns  from 
the  narrow  arch  which  had  framed  the  doorway  under  which 
the  Ark  first  passed.      He  must  have  watched  it  disappearing, 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VID 


the  white  attendants  winding  along  between  the  dark  houses, 
the  daughters  of  Jerusalem  gazing  and  weeping  at  every 
window — then  turned  away,  with  his  face  towards  the  desert 
once  more.  The  dark  crowd  moved  downward  into  the 
depths  of  the  valley  and  across  the  brook,  winding  round 
the  southern  side  of  Moriah,  all  green  and  fertile,  with 
nothing  but  Araunah's  farm -buildings  upon  its  crest,  and 
took  its  way  towards  the  wilderness.  "  And  all  the  country 
wept  with  a  loud  voice,  and  all  the  people  passed  over  :  the 
king  also  himself  passed  over  the  brook  Kidron."  One 
cannot  but  remember  how  often  in  after  days  He  who  was 
the  Son  of  David  passed  over  that  brook,  going  to  His 
sacred  meditations  in  the  garden,  or  coming  back  to  the 
cross  and  the  grave. 

"  David  went  up  the  ascent  of  Olivet,  and  wept  as  he 
went  up,  and  had  his  head  covered  ;  and  he  went  barefoot : 
and  all  the  people  that  was  with  him  covered  every  man 
his  head,  and  they  went  up,  weeping  as  they  went."  This 
was  evidently  more  than  a  mere  flight :  it  was  a  penitential 
procession,  a  confession  of  the  half-forgotten  sins  for  which 
now,  at  last,  retribution  had  come.  He  was  going  back  to 
those  old  haunts  where  his  troubled  youth  had  been  spent : 
and  he  remembered  his  errors  and  bowed  his  head  before 
that  justice  which  had  tarried  long  but  never  had  forgotten. 
It  might  have  been  said  of  David  as  it  was  of  Job — had  he 
served  God  for  nought  ?  What  promotion  had  been  given 
to  him,  what  prosperity,  what  glory !  "  I  have  seen  the 
wicked  flourish  like  a  green  bay  tree."  How  his  own  words, 
the  utterances  of  his  prosperous  and  glorious  days,  must 
have  poured  back  upon  his  mind  as  he  went  forth  leaving 
all  behind  him.  And,  deepest  pang  of  all,  by  the  hand  of 
his  son  whom  he  loved,  who  had  brought  misery  and  shame 
upon  him,  but  towards  whom  his  heart  never  ceased  to 
yearn.  Those  who  scoff  at  David  and  set  forth  his  great 
crime  as  the  central  point  of  his  life  can  never  have  followed 
the  tragedy  through  its  after  scenes.  That  was  indeed  its 
central  point  to  his  own  consciousness,  the  grand  contradic- 
tion to  all  the  generosities  and  magnanimities  of  his  life,  the 


THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL 


one  occasion  on  which  passion  made  him  false  and  cruel,  he 
whose  nature  was  so  chivalrous  and  kind.  What  humilia- 
tion was  too  great  for  the  man  who  had  so  sinned,  whose 
offence  had  thus  been  brought  back  to  him  in  all  the  terrible 
and  vivid  light  of  Divine  judgment  ?  He  had  forgotten  it 
in  the  calm  of  many  prosperous  years  :  but  God  had  not  for- 
gotten it.  What  else  but  this  could  have  taken  the  heart 
out  of  the  old  warrior,  the  mighty  man  of  valour  ?  We  all 
remember  against  him  the  death  of  Uriah  :  but  few  take  any 
account  of  the  stricken  father,  the  fugitive  king,  the  self- 
humiliated  penitent,  his  head  bowed  under  the  veil  of  mourn- 
ing, his  feet  torn  upon  the  stony  ways,  his  glory  departed 
from  him,  and  most  of  all  his  son  turned  against  him,  his 
son  whom  he  loved.  Not  only  the  death  of  Uriah,  but 
many  an  error  besides  was  no  doubt  in  David's  mind,  and 
that  sense  of  supreme  failure  which  is  so  bitter  in  the  heart 
of  a  parent  whose  children  are  unkind  and  undutiful  : — the 
consciousness  of  weak  indulgence,  of  misplaced  severity,  of 
a  house  not  well  ordered  before  God,  must  have  added  the 
gnawing  of  the  serpent's  tooth  to  all  other  distresses.  A 
thankless  child !  and  the  thought  that  had  he  himself  been 
otherwise,  more  just,  more  firm,  less  dispo.sed  to  humour  all 
their  fancies,  these  sons  might  not  have  been  the  passionate 
tumultuous  tribe  who  already  had  cost  him  so  much  .sorrow. 
Amnon  dead  :  Tamar  shamed  and  broken-hearted  :  Absalom 
in  fierce  rebellion,  seeking  his  father's  life.  David  might 
well  go  upon  his  way  weeping,  overwhelmed  with  the  bitter- 
ness of  his  downfall.  Many  a  man  was  there  in  Israel  who 
had  sinned  more  grievously  and  met  with  no  such  punish- 
ment. 

The  adventures  of  the  way  were  partly  consolatory  and 
partly  grievous.  Ziba,  the  steward  of  Mephibosheth,  into 
whose  motives  David  did  not  inquire  in  the  practical  comfort 
furni.shed  by  his  politic  contribution  of  food  and  wine ; 
Shimei  who  came  out  like  a  cur  to  gibe  at  the  fallen  monarch, 
and  curse  him  in  his  humiliation  ;  the  faithful  Hushai  whom 
with  a  momentary  gleam  of  spirit  he  .sent  back  toconfound 
the  counsels  of  Ahithophcl,  all  broke  for  good  or  for  evil  the 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID 


monotony  of  the  journey ;  and  when  the  mournful  party 
came  to  a  halt,  the  liberal  succours  afforded  both  by  friends 
and  former  enemies — the  King  of  Ammon  among  others,  with 
generous  forgetfulness  of  old  feuds,  sending  supplies  to  the 
camp — must  have  softened  the  first  sensation  of  unmitigated 
distress,  as  the  necessity  for  exertion  in  itself  and  the  experience 
of  every  new  event  must  always  do  more  or  less.  David 
was  still  so  self-abased  in  his  keen  consciousness  of  Divine 
chastisement,  that  he  would  permit  no  vengeance  to  be  taken 
upon  the  vulgar  abuse  of  Shimei  who  threw  stones  at  him 
as  he  passed.  "  Behold,  my  son  seeketh  my  life :  how 
much  more  now  may  this  Benjamite  do  it  ?  "  he  says  as  he 
passes  on. 

In  the  meantime  a  terrible  scene  was  being  enacted  in 
Jerusalem,  one  of  insult  and  affront  to  the  king,  which  is 
inconceivable  to  modern  minds,  not  to  speak  of  individual 
shame  and  horror,  which  is  never  taken  account  of  at  all  in 
any  primitive  record.  The  distracted  city  had  not  stopped 
its  weeping  for  David  when  Absalom  and  his  train  came 
clanging  up  the  steep  ascent  making  the  walls  ring 
with  their  shoutings  and  the  noise  of  their  cavalcade. 
The  women  at  the  windows  with  the  tears  not  dried  in 
their  eyes,  would  yet,  no  doubt,  flash  forth  a  glance  of 
welcome  at  the  newcomer,  the  handsome  Absalom,  in  him- 
self a  spectacle  to  drive  care  away.  He  who  had  all  the 
charm  that  had  distinguished  his  father  in  his  youth  would 
not  be  wanting,  we  may  be  sure,  in  salutations  flung  here 
and  there  on  every  side,  at  each  familiar  face,  the  touch  of 
his  rapid  hand  from  his  breast  to  his  brow,  heart  and  head 
engaged  in  the  old  allegorical  greeting — with  all  his  young 
men  after  him,  flushed  with  excitement  and  daring,  and  the 
hope  of  advancement  to  come.  The  crowd  would  gaze  and 
sway  and  change,  as  crowds  do,  welcoming,  as  every  crowd 
must,  the  relief  of  pleasure  after  mourning,  the  happy  pos- 
sibility of  forgetting  that  any  one  is  injured,  in  the  satisfaction 
of  restored  brightness  and  triumph.  And  the  throng  would 
surge  on  after  him,  pushing  up  the  streets,  pouring  out  of 
every  house,  towards  the   palace  which   stood   vacant  in    the 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  103 

guardianship  of  those  ten  poor  women — empty  for  any  man 
to  seize  and  take  possession  of  it.  One  wonders  whether 
that  dark  counsellor  by  Absalom's  side,  a  mere  speck 
among  the  bravery  of  the  brilliant  train,  had  wrongs  or  slights 
to  avenge  against  David  who  knew  his  force,  at  least,  whether 
he  had  employed  him  or  not  ?  or  if  it  were  mere  cold  wisdom 
and  policy  which  dictated  his  advice  ?  ^  Ahithophel  was  well 
aware  that  hereafter  no  compromise  was  possible,  and  that 
the  wisest  thing  to  do  was  to  press  the  matter  at  once  to  its 
violent  conclusion.  He  knew,  though  the  foolish  young  men 
did  not,  that  David's  spirit  must  come  back,  that  the  country 
must  come  to  its  senses,  and  that  the  -greatest  captains, 
as  well  as  the  most  trustworthy  of  the  people,  were, 
though  scared  and  silenced  for  the  moment,  on  David's  side. 
When  therefore  Hushai  came  in  with  his  counsel  of  delay, 
the  real  conspirator  felt  at  once  that  all  was  over.  What 
need  to  wait  till  David  came  back,  till  legitimate  vengeance 
disposed  of  his  head,  his  property,  and  all  that  was  his  ? 
Most  likely  the  wild  young  following  of  the  prince,  and 
Absalom  himself  in  the  heat  of  his  triumph,  were  glad  when 
that  serious  plotter  turned  from  them  in  disgust  and  despair, 
taking  away  the  dark  shade  of  his  dissatisfied  face  from  the 
night  of  uproar  and  commotion  which  would  follow  such  a 
day.  He  who  foresaw  the  inevitable  results  could  have 
looked  on  with  little  satisfaction  at  the  revel  had  he  remained, 
and  the  sound  of  the  hoofs  of  his  mule,  as  he  turned  again 
down  the  stony  street  and  an.swered  the  challenge  of  the 
watchman  at  the  gates,  would  no  doubt  be  a  good  riddance 
to  the  triumphant  crew  who  felt  that,  counsel  or  no  counsel, 
everything  was  now  at  their  feet. 

Meantime  David,  having  put  the  Jordan  between  himself 
and  the  rebels,  had  established  himself  in  Mahanaim,  a  city 
near  the  borders  of  Israel,  near  enough  to  Ammon  to  flutter 

'  Ahithophel  is  traced  in  the  lists  given  in  the  Book  of  Samuel  as  having  l)een 
the  fatlicr  of  a  certain  Eliam.  And  liathshcba,  David's  wife,  was  the  daughter 
f)f  Kliani  :  whence  it  has  been  supposed  that  she  was  the  granddaughter  of 
Aliithophel.  Hut  Kliam  is  not  an  unconinum  name,  and  it  is  difficult  to  under- 
stand how  the  wise  man  could  Ix;  the  deadly  opponent  of  his  grandchild's 
husband  in  the  interest  of  another  branch  of  the  family. 


I04  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VID  part  i 

the  hearts  of  the  Ammonites,  who  were  not  guiltless  towards 
him,  though  they  had  hastened  to  propitiate  him  by  presents. 
For  by  this  time  the  fugitives  had  grown  into  a  host,  with  the 
greatest  generals  of  Israel  at  its  head,  men  who  were  entitled 
to  make  but  light  of  Absalom,  a  man  of  pleasure  and  not 
of  war,  though  he  had  Amasa  of  their  own  warlike  blood,  a 
grandson  of  Jesse  of  Bethlehem,  as  were  the  sons  of  Zeruiah, 
to  lead  his  followers.  What  Joab's  sentiments  were  about 
the  matter  it  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  ;  a  deep  wrath  and 
disgust  with  his  showy  and  specious  cousin  must  have  been 
in  his  self-restrained  and  stubborn  spirit.  It  had  been  he 
who  had  induced  David  to  follow  the  dictates  of  his  own 
longing  and  bring  home  his  rebellious  son.  He  had  in  a 
manner  answered  for  Absalom,  that  now  all  would  go  well. 
And  the  man  he  had  thus  protected  and  served  had  over- 
turned the  kingdom  which  was  founded  on  the  labours  of 
Joab's  life  as  well  as  David's,  after  many  a  tough  struggle 
and  weary  watch.  In  Joab's  heart  there  was  none  of  that 
love  which  had  weakened  the  judgment  of  the  king.  He, 
too,  no  doubt,  had  regarded  with  affection  in  his  way  the 
beautiful  boy  who  had  grown  up  under  his  eyes,  his  gracious 
young  kinsman,  gay  and  pleasant,  who  had  charmed  all 
Israel.  He  had  been  seduced  into  believing  that  to  be 
restored  to  his  own  house  and  his  people  was  all  that  Absalom 
wanted.  But  now  that  he  was  undeceived  there  was  no  indul- 
gence in  Joab's  heart.  Had  he  been  a  man  of  policy  alone  we 
might  imagine  that  the  certainty  that  Absalom  so  long  as  he 
lived  would  be  a  standing  danger  to  the  crown,  was  what  moved 
him  most :  but  though  his  strong  sense  made  that  too  ap- 
parent to  him,  Joab  had  thus  more  poignant  reasons  still  for 
being  remorseless  towards  Absalom  who  had  deceived  him. 

Nothing  could  be  more  vivid,  or  more  touching,  than  the 
picture  of  the  setting  out  of  the  forces  from  their  city  of 
refuge  to  meet  the  rebels.  The  king  was  not  allowed  to  go 
forth  with  them  for  reasons  that  are  evident ;  but  he  came 
out  and  stood  by  the  gate  to  see  them  march  past  "  by 
hundreds  and  by  thousands,"  in  companies  and  battalions  as 
we  should  say  ;  and   as  each  captain  appeared   at  the  head 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  105 

of  his  troop  David  stopped  the  march  a  moment  for  a  part- 
ing word.  It  was  not  any  counsel  of  war  that  the  experienced 
old  soldier  gave  to  his  officers.  "  Deal  gently  for  my  sake  with 
the  young  man,"  was  what  the  anxious  father  said.  "  And  all 
the  people  heard  when  the  king  gave  all  the  captains  charge 
concerning  Absalom."  With  pity,  with  sympathy,  with  anger 
and  impatience  no  doubt  they  listened,  the  common  men, 
always  the  most  accessible  to  emotion,  touched  and  softened, 
while  their  leaders  chafed,  impatient  of  such  a  restriction. 
The  rebel,  the  usurper,  the  traitor,  condemned  by  all  laws ! 
was  not  this  a  weakness  more  than  could  be  borne  on  the 
part  of  the  king,  who  had  been  hunted  from  his  home,  the 
crown  taken  from  his  head>  the  allegiance  of  his  people 
stolen  away,  by  this  same  Absalom  of  whose  safety  now  he 
thought  more  than  of  the  welfare  of  all  his  faithful  servants ! 
Joab,  for  one,  must  have  given  neither  answer  nor  pledge, 
but  marched  on  with  his  stubborn  countenance  and  certainty 
that  if  he  found  that  dainty  gallant  in  his  way  there  should 
be  short  shrift.      Thus  the  army  went  forth  to  the  battle. 

And  David  "  sat  between  the  two  gates."  He  was  still 
the  light  of  Israel,  not  to  be  risked  in  such  a  conflict,  and 
perhaps  his  heart  was  too  faint  with  the  unnatural  struggle  to 
seek  a  point  of  vantage  whence  he  could  see  the  approach 
of  the  messengers  or  the  far-off  dust  of  the  battle.  He  sat 
where  he  could  catch  the  first  runner  from  the  field,  and 
hear  the  first  news,  but  not  see,  perhaps,  the  rush  of  fugi- 
tives retiring,  perhaps  his  son  dragged  hither  a  prisoner. 
When  the  watchman  called  out  from  above  that  some  one 
was  visible  on  the  way  and  that  his  running  was  like  that  of 
Ahimaaz  the  son  of  Zadok,  the  king  in  his  anxiety  answered 
that  his  news  must  be  good  for  he  was  a  good  man  :  but  it 
was  not  Ahimaaz,  but  the  blunt  Cushi,  the  other  Levite  whom 
Joab,  not  loving  him  it  would  .seem,  had  charged  with  that 
dire  news,  who  told  it.  David  did  not  ask  what  was  the  issue 
of  the  fight,  he  said,  "  Is  the  young  man  Absalom  safe  ? " 
What  did  kingdom  or  crown  matter  in  that  awful  moment — 
his  son,  his  son  !  And  how  many  a  heartbroken  man  and 
woman,  father  and   mother,  have  echoed   that  cry  of  anguish 


io6  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

after  him,  which  burst  from  his  lips  when  the  talc  of  victory 
was  told.  "  O  my  son  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son  Absalom  ! 
would  God  I  had  died  for  thee,  O  Absalom,  my  son,  my 
son  ! "  Earth  and  Heaven  are  silent  before  that  cry — there 
is  no  more  that  words  can  say. 

"  And  the  king  went  up  to  the  chamber  that  was  over 
the  gate,  and  wept,"  the  first  place  where  he  could  hide  his 
head,  caring  to  hear  nothing  more.  In  all  literature  there  is 
no  such  picture,  so  brief,  so  poignant  and  true.  All  policy, 
all  satisfaction  in  his  deliverance  were  forgotten.  "  O  my 
son  Absalom,  O  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son ! "  This  was 
the  cry  that  the  returning  victors  heard  as  they  came  back 
triumphant  to  the  gates  of  the  city,  where,  no  doubt,  the 
scared  and  sorrowful  people  were  standing  about,  wrung  to 
the  heart  by  that  outcry.  The  music  stopped,  the -warriors 
huddled  together,  feeling,  each  man,  as  if  he  were  a  murderer. 
They  broke  out  of  their  ranks  and  "  gat  them  by  stealth  into 
the  city,  as  people  being  ashamed  steal  away  when  they  flee 
in  battle."  Nothing  could  be  added  that  would  not  diminish 
the  wonderful  effect  of  such  a  description.  The  day  was 
won,  yet  it  was  as  if  it  had  been  lost.^ 

But  so  true,  so  real  is  the  tale,  that  when  Joab  strides  in 
once  more  with  his  stubborn  sense  and  practical  force,  even 
the  most  deeply-touched  spectator  cannot  contradict  him  or 
disapprove.  Short  of  that  removal  of  the  rebel,  what  peace 
could  there  have  been  for  Israel  ?  and  the  mourner  who  lay 
there  with  his  face  covered  from  the  light  of  day,  was  a  king 
first,  and  not  a  father  at  liberty  to  express  his  anguish. 
"  Thou  hast  shamed  the  faces  of  thy  servants,  who  this  day 
have  saved  thy  life,  and  the  lives  of  thy  sons  and  daughters," 
says  the  stern  captain  with  his  coat  and  heart  of  steel  ;  "  in 
that  thou  lovest  thine  enemies,  and  hatest  thy  friends  :  for 
thou  hast  declared  this  day,  that  thou  regardest  neither 
princes  nor  servants  ;  for  this  day  I  perceive,  that  if  Absalom 

1  I  need  say  nothing  to  those  critics  who  find  in  David's  attitude  a  hypo- 
critical pretence  at  sorrow.  They  may  know  philology  and  other  learned 
sciences  :  but  not  the  heart  of  man,  that  more  wonderful  thing  still.  M.  Renan 
is  naturally  one  of  those  apes  of  genius  who  mock  this  profoundest  utterance  of 
human  sorrow. 


ABSALOM  S    PILLAR.      VALLEY  OF   JF.HOSHAPHAT 


THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  109 


had  lived,  and  all  we  had  died,  then  it   had   pleased   thee 
well." 

David  could  not  resist  this  voice  of  reason.  For  a  king 
there  is  little  time  for  the  indulgence  of  sorrow,  or  indeed  for 
any  man  or  woman  encompassed  with  the  cares  of  life.  Pie 
descended  from  that  retirement  and  sat  in  the  gate,  and 
received  the  captains  who  came  before  him,  discouraged,  with 
drooping  crests,  and  such  of  the  warriors  as  had  not  dispersed 
already,  half  indignant,  half  sorry,  to  their  homes.  All  that 
he  could  do  to  make  up  for  his  momentary  failure  it  is  clear 
that  he  did,  but  probably  with  but  partial  effect.  And  it  is 
equally  clear  that  Joab,  never  beloved,  was  in  disgrace  from 
that  day.  No  doubt  David  heard  of  the  personal  share  he 
had  in  the  slaying  of  Absalom,  and  resented  doubly  on  this 
account  the  abrupt  disturbance  of  his  seclusion  by  the  very 
man  who  had  struck  the  blow.  He  made  overtures  to 
Amasa,  who  had  been  Absalom's  general,  with  some  thought 
of  policy  perhaps,  but  assuredly  more  in  bitterness  and  deep 
resentment.  He  would  have  nothing  more  to  say  to  those 
sons  of  Zeruiah,  who  had  always  been  as  thorns  in  his  flesh. 
When  Amasa  failed  him,  or  seemed  to  fail,  on  a  later  occasion, 
it  was  to  Abishai,  the  less  important  brother,  and  not  to 
Joab,  whom  David  turned.  But  it  was  not  long  before  that 
determined  man  regained,  in  his  usual  unscrupulous  way  by 
bloodshed  and  force,  the  command  which  was  evidently  his 
by  right  of  nature.  Whatever  private  feeling  might  do  or 
say,  this  great  general  was  not  to  be  put  aside  or  ignored. 

David  came  back  to  Jerusalem  in  a  kind  of  melancholy 
triumph.  He  would  have  no  vengeance  taken  upon  the 
miserable  Shimei  who  came  down,  like  a  cur,  to  the  bank  of 
Jordan  to  proffer  his  abject  prayer  for  pardon.  "  Shall  there 
any  man  be  put  to  death  to-day  in  Israel  ?  for  do  not  I 
know  that  I  am  this  day  king  over  Israel  ?  "  he  said.  It  is 
bad  for  David's  fame  that  the  matter  did  not  rest  there  :  but 
the  most  sentimental  spectator  could  scarcely  feel  any  sym- 
pathy for  Shimei  in  his  baseness.  And  David  was  lavish  in 
his  gratitude  to  Barzillai,  the  aged  chief  of  Gilcad,  who  had 
succoured  him  in  his  distress.  *   His  conduct  to  Mcphibosheth, 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D 


the  son  of  Jonathan,  whom  he  had  protected  all  his  life,  is 
less  creditable  :  he  had  made  a  hasty  promise  of  all  that  his 
master  possessed  to  Ziba,  the  steward  of  Mephibosheth,  who 
had  hurried  after  him  on  his  flight  with  provisions  for  the 
retinue,  and  a  false  story  of  his  master's  hopes  of  recovering 
the  kingdom.  When  the  lame  prince  came  hurrying  out  to 
the  gates  to  meet  the  king,  David — his  heart  heavy  no  doubt 
as  he  approached  that  fateful  place  where  such  orgies  had  been 
held  in  his  absence,  where  Absalom  had  flashed  through  his 
brief  reign  of  a  day,  where  all  the  events  of  that  brilliant 
young  life,  which  was  now  over  in  trouble  and  shame,  had 
taken  place — was  in  little  case  for  other  thoughts.  This 
lame  son  of  Jonathan,  this  disabled  man,  lived  and  was  faith- 
ful, while  the  tragedy  of  the  other  was  ended.  There  are 
moments  when  even  the  goodness  of  another  is  bitter  to  us 
in  comparison  with  the  failure  of  our  own.  And  he  was 
weary  and  sick  at  heart  with  all  the  demands  upon  him  which 
triumph  and  victory  made.  When  it  was  made  apparent  to 
him  that  his  decision  in  favour  of  Ziba  had  been  a  rash  one, 
he  replied  in  that  weariness  and  impatience  with  which  a  man 
harassed  beyond  his  powers  turns  from  the  error  he  cannot 
undo  :  "  Why  speakest  thou  any  more  of  thy  matters  ?  I  have 
said.  Thou  and  Ziba  divide  the  land."  It  was  unjust  and 
unkind,  but  David  was  driven  to  the  end  of  his  strength. 
Was  it  not  enough  that  he  had  to  keep  a  smile  upon  his 
face,  to  keep  up  a  joyful  bearing,  to  reply  to  the  plaudits  and 
the  songs,  to  look  as  if  he  were  coming  back  as  a  conqueror, 
proud  and  glad  of  the  downfall  of  his  adversary — although 
his  adversary  was  his  son,  his  best  beloved  for  whom  he 
would  willingly  have  given  his  life  ?  That  fierce  son  of 
Zeruiah  behind  him,  with  his  stern  reason  would  not  spare 
David  a  jot  of  the  triumph.  Perhaps  it  gave  him  a  little 
ease  to  thrust  poor  Mephibosheth  from  him,  Mephibosheth 
who  had  understanding,  who  did  not  insist,  but  fell  back 
from  the  path  of  the  suffering  king. 

After  this  return  to  Jerusalem  there  is  but  little  remain- 
ing to  record  of  the  life  of  David.  There  was  another 
rebellion,  that  of  Sheba  the  s'on  of  Bichri,  of  which  we  are 


THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL 


told  little  except  in  so  far  as  it  affected  the  disgraced  general, 
Joab,  who  took  the  opportunity  in  his  old  trenchant  way 
to  rid  himself  of  the  man  who  had  been  put  over  him — 
Amasa,  his  cousin,  who  had  been  Absalom's  general,  and 
whom  David  had  promoted,  whether  from  policy  or  from  a 
perverse  regard  for  the  man  who  had  been  his  son's  support, 
even  against  himself — or  from  sheer  hatred  of  Joab  and 
determination  to  get  rid  of  him,  it  is  impossible  to  say. 
Amasa  had  been  a  laggard,  had  not  done  all  that  was 
required  of  him  ;  and  Abishai  had  been  sent  out  in  his 
place  to  lead  the  hosts  of  Israel,  Joab  and  his  men  follow- 
ing, apparently  without  any  protest.  But  after  Amasa  was 
killed  we  hear  of  Abishai  no  more.  Joab  must  have  stepped 
into  his  natural  place  the  moment  the  army  was  in  the  field 
and  generalship  was  needed — generalship  and  policy  as  well. 
For  it  would  seem  that  there  was  need  of  caution  in  dealing 
with  the  agitated  country,  and  when  the  rebel  had  been 
tracked  to  his  last  stronghold  even  the  fierce  commander- 
in-chief  was  glad  to  secure  a  victory  without  bloodshed 
through  the  means  of  that  woman  of  Tekoah  who  spoke 
to  him  from  the  wall.  Joab,  it  is  evident,  did  not  despise 
the  mediation  of  a  mother  in  Israel.  He  had  himself 
employed  the  same  means  in  former  times.  And  it  is  a 
curious  instance  of  the  singular  mixture  of  respect  and  dis- 
respect with  which  women  were  treated  in  these  primitive 
times,  that  we  see  them  on  one  page  exposed  to  the 
unimaginable  careless  cruelty  practised  by  Absalom,  and 
by  almost  every  usurper,  the  last  affront  that  could  be 
offered  to  a  deposed  monarch  without  any  consideration  of 
the  immediate  victims  ;  and  on  the  next  find  a  woman 
negotiating  for  her  city,  describing  herself  with  the  confidence 
of  an  assured  superiority  as  "  one  of  those  who  are  peaceable 
and  faithful  in  Israel."  "A  mother  in  Israel."  The  same 
anomaly,  however,  still  exists  in  the  East.  It  is  no  doubt 
an  instance  of  the  great  power  of  individual  character  in 
the  primitive  conditions  of  life. 

There  are  other  details  of  David's  life  into  which  wc 
can  scarcely  enter.      His  conduct  to  the  house  of  Saul   had 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D 


been  hitherto  almost  free  of  reproach :  but  it  is  hard  to 
account  for  the  giving  up  of  those  sons  of  Rizpah  who, 
nameless  as  they  are,  have  found  a  place  in  everlasting 
remembrance  from  the  devotion  of  their  mother.  Let  it  be 
said  in  qualification  of  his  conduct  that  as  soon  as  he  was 
told  of  Rizpah's  terrible  watch  he  lost  no  time,  himself  an 
ever-mourning  father,  to  give  what  consolation  was  possible 
to  her  misery.  Otherwise,  save  in  that  other  moment  of 
trouble  at  the  gates  of  Jerusalem,  when  poor  Mephibosheth 
was  mulcted  of  half  his  lands,  he  was  never  unfaithful  to  his 
vow  to  Jonathan,  or  allegiance  to  his  early  patron.  The 
troubles  of  Saul  were  of  his  own  seeking.  David  was  not 
the  origin  of  any  of  them,  but  throughout,  with  these 
exceptions,  bore  himself  with  magnanimity  and  generosity 
of  the  most  chivalrous  kind. 

And  towards  Israel  he  never  failed,  unless  in  those 
mysterious  numberings  of  the  people — the  repeated  census, 
which  seems  harmless  enough,  and  was  so  evident  a  suggestion 
of  legislation  :  yet  which  were  in  some  strange  way  imputed 
to  him  as  offences  against  God.  At  all  events  they 
cannot  in  any  way  be  considered  a  transgression  of 
morals.  He  made  his  people  great,  he  welded  the  tribes 
together  as  never  had  been  done  before,  and  made  a  united 
kingdom  of  the  differing  clans  and  districts  which  had  been 
so  apt  each  to  fall  into  a  little  local  centre  of  its  own.  He 
turned  the  little  Jebusite  city  into  a  capital,  distinct  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  and  to  be  renowned  through  all  time. 
It  was  he  in  whose  fertile  mind  first  rose  the  conception  of 
that  great  Temple,  which  was  one  of  the  marvels  of  the 
ancient  world.  And  whatever  the  caviller  and  critic  may 
say  in  the  uncertain,  often  mistaken,  constantly  superseded 
suggestions  of  their  science,  which  at  the  best  cannot  be 
more  than  conjecture,  there  can  surely  be  no  evidence  half 
so  weighty  as  the  tradition  of  his  race  and  the  internal 
witness  of  these  noble  poems,  against  his  character  as  a 
poet.  After  thousands  of  years  even  his  words,  the  ex- 
pressions of  feeling  which  belong  to  his  life  rather  than  to 
his    works,  his    wail    for  Absalom,  his    remonstrances  with 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  113 

Saul — come  to  our  lips  still  as  the  expression  of  our 
deepest  emotions.  And  no  other  poet,  not  even  Shake^ 
speare,  has  entered  so  deeply  into  the  hearts  of  all  men. 
The  race  of  mankind  has  "  considered  the  heavens "  for 
all  these  centuries,  yet  has  never  found  anything  so 
magnificent  to  say  of  them  as  the  words  in  which  the 
shepherd  of  Bethlehem,  the  King  of  Israel,  described 
the  sun  as  coming  like  a  bridegroom  out  of  his  chamber, 
and  rejoicing  like  a  giant  to  run  his  race.  The  astron- 
omer may  tell  us  that  the  sun  does  not  move,  that  the 
description  is  inaccurate,  just  as  the  philologist  tells  us,  but 
on  far  inferior  evidence,  that  the  Psalm  is  the  interpolation 
of  some  nameless  scribe.  But  the  astronomer  is  a  fool  for 
his  pains :  for  to  us  mortals  as  long  as  we  live  under  the 
conditions  of  earth,  the  sunrise  and  the  sunset  are  as  certain 
as  our  own  existence.  And  the  moon  and  the  stars  which 
God  has  ordained,  which  are  the  Divine  language  by  which 
day  unto  day  uttereth  speech,  and  night  unto  night  shewcth 
knowledge,  are  to  us  as  they  were  to  the  ancient  singer,  the 
lamps  of  heaven,  the  lights  of  this  little  earth — of  which  we 
are  not  more  sure  in  our  advanced  knowledge  that  it  is  but  an 
atom  in  boundless  space,  than  he  felt  it  to  be  in  his  sublime 
ignorance  when  he  cried  in  the  midst  of  that  overwhelming 
glory,  "  What  is  man,  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him  ? " 
What  Newton,  what  Herschel,  could  say  more  ? 

Thus  said  David,  if  the  evidence  of  the  most  carefully 
preserved  records  in  the  world  is  not  altogether  without 
truth :  and  if,  what  is  more  infallible  still,  the  indica- 
tions of  true  literary  criticism,  the  truth  to  nature,  the 
accord  of  those  great  lyrics  with  the  occasions  of  a 
much  troubled  life,  are  not  without  truth — which  latter 
we  believe  to  be  impossible,  even  should  there  be  any 
weakness  in  the  tradition.  The  story  and  the  song 
illustrate  each  other,  and  give  and  take  a  mutual  interest. 
They  show  David  to  us  as  a  man  ready  to  the  touch  of 
every  emotion,  open  to  all  nature,  moved,  like  the  harp  upon 
which  he  played,  by  every  breath,  pouring  forth  his  com- 
plaints, his  adorations,  his  triumphs,  the  depths  of  his  soul  on 

I 


1 14  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D  part  i 

the  frequent  occasions  when  that  fervent  soul  was  deeply 
affected,  with  a  voice  which  is  now  like  the  softest  air  of 
heaven  and  now  like  the  storm  that  rends  the  rocks  ;  and 
in  which  no  note  is  false,  whether  it  is  that  which  celebrates 
the  springs  that  run  among  the  hills,  and  the  birds  that  sing 
in  the  branches — or  that  which  declaims  the  grandeur  of 
Him  who  flies  upon  the  wings  of  the  wind.  This  great 
singer,  this  impetuous,  impassioned  prince,  this  man  whose 
voice  is  as  distinct  and  far  more  magnificent  than  that  of  any 
contemporary  we  know,  proves  his  own  reality  by  every 
sign  of  genius  and  life. 

The  man  after  God's  own  heart !  to  many  this  has 
been  a  wonder  and  stumbling-block,  remembering  Uriah  and 
all  that  wild  and  terrible  story.  It  is  no  excuse  to  say  that 
it  is  a  story  which  would  never  have  been  remembered  or 
thought  of  in  the  history  of  any  other  Eastern  king,  who 
probably  would  have  bow-stringed  Nathan  for  his  remon- 
strance and  thought  no  more  of  it.  But  great  as  that  sin 
was,  it  was  bitterly  expiated.  The  severest  judge  could  not 
have  desired  a  more  terrible  punishment  for  the  worst 
criminal  than  the  stormy  history  of  these  few  years  in 
David's  house,  the  tragedies  of  Amnon  and  of  Absalom, 
the  flight  and  return  of  the  father-king  who  could  not  draw 
his  old  sword,  the  sword  of  Goliath,  against  his  son,  and  was 
not  permitted  to  mourn  for  him.  To  follow  him  in  his 
triumph  as  he  rode  back  through  Jerusalem,  received  with 
acclaim,  every  gay  carpet  and  garment  hung  out,  the  whole 
city  shining  with  joy  and  welcome  :  and  Joab  behind  him, 
the  murderer  of  his  boy,  great  Joab,  the  greatest  warrior  of 
his  day,  the  most  successful  general,  with  a  stern  eye  upon 
the  king  lest  his  smile  should  fail,  and  the  outcry  of  his 
heart  break  forth  :  and  not  to  fling  himself  on  David's  side, 
to  take  the  part  of  that  sufferer,  is  impossible,  we  think,  to 
any  sympathetic  reader.  But  in  all  this,  as  we  say,  he  took 
his  punishment  like  a  man  —  if  we  except,  perhaps,  that 
moment  when  his  courage  gave  way  altogether  at  the  sight 
of  Absalom  in  rebellion,  and  he  fled  in  what  seems  like  an 
undue  and  humiliating  panic  from  Jerusalem,  a  panic  which 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  115 

the  recollection  of  Nathan's  message  years  before,  mingled 
with  the  pang  of  so  unnatural  a  pursuit,  can  alone  account 
for.  It  is  evident  that  this,  too,  was  an  element  in  a 
character  so  full  of  the  play  of  human  emotion,  so  sensitive 
to  love,  so  doubly  sensitive  to  hate.  His  first  flight  from 
Saul  has  the  same  element  of  panic  in  it,  a  sense  of  the 
intolerable,  as  if  life  were  over  for  the  man  against  whom 
his  own  familiar  friend,  his  almost  father  in  one  case,  his 
favourite  son  in  the  other,  had  turned.  In  both  cases  that 
quick  overwhelming  movement  and  sudden  despair  have 
something  cowardly  in  them  to  our  more  self-restrained  and 
impulse-concealing  race. 

But  it  is  this  very  play  of  feeling  which  makes  him  so 
full  of  attraction,  so  supreme  in  the  affections  of  his  surround- 
ings, that  the  historian  translates  his  charm  and  fascination 
of  nature  by  that  superlative  phrase.  His  life  is  a  poem 
from  beginning  to  end,  not  a  point  in  it  which  does  not 
touch  the  spectator.  His  early  youthful  imaginative  valour, 
that  quintessence  of  boyish  daring  which  made  of  him  at 
once,  fresh  from  the  sheepfolds,  a  hero,  and  prince  among 
his  people  :  the  love  that  sprang  into  life  everywhere 
on  the  appearance  of  the  beautiful  youth,  half  wondering, 
half  adoring,  the  love  of  the  fickle  Michal,  and  the  faithful 
Jonathan — and  scarcely  less  the  unjust  and  bitter  hatred 
produced  by  no  act  of  his,  the  jealous  dread  of  Saul's  moody 
spirit :  the  cruel  reverses  that  followed  his  good  fortune,  the 
wanderings  in  the  desert,  the  drama  of  that  roving  life,  the 
magnanimity  and  chivalric  generosity  of  his  conduct  to  the 
king  :  every  incident  as  it  occurs  leads  on  the  imagination 
as  through  the  most  perfect  composition  of  romance.  The 
extraordinary  vitality  and  activity  of  thought  and  emotion 
which  never  flag,  the  hasty  succession  of  great  impulses,  with 
the  occasional  break  of  a  withdrawal  equally  hasty,  as  when 
overwhelmed  by  awe  he  leaves  the  Ark  on  the  way,  and 
hurries  home  disappointed  in  imaginative  alarm  and  distress, 
all  carry  us  along  with  him  in  a  rush  of  sympathy  and 
interest.  The  story  of  Bathshcba  breaks  in  with  a  sudden 
violent  light  of  passion   into   the  talc,  the   keenest  flash  of 


Ii6  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  vart  i 

illumination  surrounded  by  the  most  sombre  shadows. 
When  it  is  over,  that  sudden  tragedy,  we  see  the  sinner 
prostrate  in  the  dust,  unresistant,  self- condemned,  without 
a  thought  of  excuse  or  apology.  Neither  does  his  historian 
put  forth  for  him  any  plea.  And  then  the  unquenchable 
life  springs  up  again  and  a  hundred  projects  throb  and 
quicken  in  his  brain.  A  splendid  city,  the  joy  of  the  whole 
earth — a  still  more  splendid  house  of  God  :  and  then  again 
the  pause,  the  crushing  disappointment,  the  quick  recovery. 
A  man  of  impulse  throughout,  obeying  in  hot  haste  the 
ideas,  almost  always  generous  and  noble,  that  crowd  into 
his  mind,  the  quick  inspirations  of  a  great  genius — there  is 
a  spontaneousness,  an  unconsciousness,  a  warm  spring  of 
nature  in  everything  about  him  which  is  an  unfailing  delight. 
He  is  a  perfect  impersonation  of  humanity,  so  genuine  a 
man  all  through,  so  unguarded,  so  little  given  to  any  arrange- 
ment of  circumstances  or  calculation  of  self-interest 
(notwithstanding  the  quick  eye  of  Eastern  policy,  which 
could  not  overlook  a  visible  advantage),  that  the  ima- 
gination is  never  weary  of  him.  An  erring  man  with 
hot  and  unruly  passions,  a  hasty  soul  plunging  into  many 
snares,  a  father  how  foolish,  how  fond,  how  over-trusting  ! 
Yet  with  a  splendour  of  force  and  purpose  in  him  which 
carried  all  before  it,  not  to  speak  of  that  stubborn  and  dark- 
browed  Joab  behind,  who  opposed  and  bullied  and  remon- 
strated, yet  always  with  a  fierce  devotion,  fascinated  and 
held  captive  through  all  disapproval  and  opposition. 

David  returned,  no  doubt,  after  this  terrible  break  in  his 
life,  to  all  his  occupations,  and  specially  to  his  plans  and 
designs  for  the  Temple  which  he  was  not  to  build  :  and  pro- 
cured himself  a  little  distraction,  let  us  hope,  from  sadder 
thoughts,  in  overlooking  the  artists  from  Tyre  as  they  de- 
vised decorations  and  embellishments,  perhaps  suggesting 
himself,  adding  a  rough  sketch,  an  idea  for  the  carving  of  a 
capital,  for  the  wreathed  flowers  of  a  cornice  ;  or  arranging 
with  Asaph  and  his  men  the  service  that  was  to  be,  the 
chorus  and  antiphon,  the  adagio  and  allegro  of  the  music, 
and  how  to  fit  to  its  primitive  strain  the  verses  which  critics 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  117 

tell  US  are  so  rude  and  ill-adapted  for  music,  of  his  primitive 
Hebrew — which  nevertheless  must  have  been  the  best  Hebrew 
facing  in  that  day  or  long  after,  as  it  has  ranked  among  the 
noblest  poetry  going  through  all  the  centuries  since  then. 
But  a  chill  would  seem  to  have  come  over  that  bright  spirit 
in  his  later  years.  It  is  no  strain  of  the  imagination  to 
believe  that  it  was  said  in  Jerusalem  of  the  king  that  after 
the  death  of  Absalom  he  never  held  up  his  head  again. 
How  often  have  such  words  been  said !  Calamity  comes, 
death  comes  into  his  house,  when  a  man  is  still  in  full  vigour, 
his  eye  not  dim,  nor  his  natural  force  abated  :  and  soon  every 
bystander  will  tell  you  with  shaken  head  and  bated  breath 
that  he  has  never  held  up  his  head  again.  It  is  true  that 
in  those  thanksgivings  for  delivery  in  which  the  entire 
assembly  took  part,  those  who  had  unthreaded  the  rude 
eye  of  rebellion,  and  those  who  came  up  when  all  the  trouble 
was  over  to  congratulate  the  king — there  is  no  diminution  of 
energy  or  force.  Perhaps  the  very  heat  and  passion  of  his 
grief  made  it  more  possible  to  him  to  keep  up  in  this  way 
the  fictitious  joy  which  Joab  and  policy  insisted  upon  in  his 
return  to  his  capital.  And  it  must  have  been  a  relief  for 
the  sorely  wounded  father  to  put  the  blame  upon  Ahithophel 
and  other  evil  counsellors,  and  to  exult  with  stern  delight 
in  their  overthrow.  How  the  air  of  Jerusalem  must  have 
rung  again,  and  what  a  shout  passed  over  the  valley  when 
the  choirs  answering  to  each  other  poured  forth  their  song ! 

TIic  Lord  is  my  rock. 
And  my  fortress, 
And  my  deliverer  ; 

In  Him  will  I  trust : 

He  is  my  shield, 

And  the  horn  of  my  salvation, 

My  refuge,  and  my  tower. 

I  will  call  upon  the  Lord, 

Worthy  to  be  praised  : 

So  shall  I  be  saved  from  mine  enemies. 

The  waves  of  death  compassed  me  about, 
The  floods  of  ungodly  men 
Made  me  afraid  ; 


ii8  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID 

The  sorrows  of  hell  compassed  me  about 
The  snares  of  death 
Stood  in  my  way  ; 

In  my  distress  I  called  upon  the  Lord, 

And  cried  unto  my  God  : 

And  He  heard  my  voice, 

And  my  cry  entered  into  His  ears. 


I  have  pursued  mine  enemies,  and  destroyed  them  ; 
I  have  consumed  tiiem,  and  wounded  them  : 
Yea,  they  are  fallen  under  my  feet. 

For  Thou  hast  girded  me  with  strength  for  the  battle  : 
Them  that  rose  up  against  me 
Hast  Thou  subdued  under  me. 

Then  did  I  beat  them  as  small  as  the  dust  of  the  earth, 

I  did  stamp  them  as  the  mire  of  the  street. 

And  spread  them  abroad  as  the  dust  before  the  wind. 


For  who  is  God, 
Save  the  Lord  1 
And  who  is  a  rock. 
Save  our  God  ? 

God  is  my  strength  and  power  : 
He  maketh  my  way  perfect. 
And  my  feet  swift  as  the  hinds'. 

He  teacheth  my  hands  to  war  ; 

So  that  the  bows  of  steel  are  broken. 

He  setteth  me  in  my  high  place. 

The  Lord  liveth  ; 
And  blessed  be  my  Rock  ; 
And  exalted  be  the  God 
Of  my  salvation. 

With  .such  strains  as  these  the  Levites  answered  to  each 
other  in  their  companies,  and  the  harps  and  the  psalteries 
thrilled  the  air,  while  the  king  in  his  high  place,  and  the 
warriors  fresh  from  battle  stood  by,  and  the  concourse  of  the 
women,  a  many  -  coloured  crowd,  moved  and  murmured 
through  the  courts  outside,  around  the  folded  curtains  which 
concealed  the  Ark,  the  symbol  of  God's  protecting  presence 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  1 19 

and  of  so  many  victories  past.  But  David,  though  he  gave 
expression  to  this  cry  of  triumph,  went  back  mirthless  to  his 
house  with  death  in  his  heart. 

One  great  pubh'c  ceremonial  still  remained  in  the  life  of 
David.  It  had  probably  become  apparent  to  all  that  in  the 
tumultuous  state  of  the  king's  house,  to  avoid  the  inevitable 
struggle  that  must  come  afterwards,  it  was  necessary  that  he 
should  solemnly  select  and  appoint  his  successor.  How  it 
was  that  the  choice  fell  on  Solomon,  whether  because  of  his 
intrinsic  qualities  or  from  the  special  love  borne  by  his  father 
to  Bathsheba,  there  is  no  mention  in  any  of  the  histories  : 
but  in  Chronicles  it  is  fully  related  as  the  immediate  choice 
of  God  and  for  a  particular  end.  He  was  far  down  in  the 
list  of  the  king's  sons,  but  it  may  well  have  been  that  the 
boy's  natural  greatness  and  superiority  to  the  host  of  ordinary 
young  men  about  him  was  already  apparent  to  all,  though 
that  has  seldom  been  an  effectual  argument  with  men.  At 
all  events,  upon  whatever  ground  the  choice  was  made,  the 
alleged  reason  for  it  was  distinctly  that  of  the  great  Temple 
that  had  to  be  built  and  for  which  Solomon  had  been 
indicated  as  the  builder.  In  the  solemn  assembly  of  all  his 
chiefs  and  people  which  David  held  for  the  purpose  of  this 
selection,  there  is  no  mention  of  wars  abroad  or  legislation  at 
home,  but  solely  of  the  house  of  the  Lord  which  was  to  be 
the  great  glory  of  the  Hebrew  race.  "  David  assembled  all 
the  princes  of  Israel,  the  princes  of  the  tribes,  and  the  captains 
of  the  companies  that  ministered  to  the  king  by  course,  and 
the  captains  over  the  thousands,  and  the  captains  over  the 
hundreds,  and  the  stewards  over  all  the  substance  and 
possessions  of  the  king,  and  of  his  sons,  with  the  officers,  and 
with  the  mighty  men,  and  with  all  the  valiant  men,  unto 
Jerusalem."  He  called  together,  as  we  should  say,  the  great 
officials  of  the  kingdom,  his  ministers,  the  heads  of  depart- 
ments, his  privy-councillors  and  officers  in  high  command, 
the  great  men  of  the  nation,  with  the  military  element  pre- 
ponderating as  was  natural — and  presented  to  them  his  young 
son,  most  probably  to  the  great  surprise  of  many,  and  no 
doubt  to  the  dismay  and  confusion  of  the  elders  of  the  family, 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID 


and  specially  of  Adonijah  who  was  now  the  firstborn,  after  the 
death  of  Absalom.  The  king  himself  would  seem  to  have 
felt  that  an  explanation  of  this  choice  was  necessary.  When 
he  rose  to  address  that  assembly  he  reminded  them  how  he 
himself  had  been  selected  for  the  royal  dignity  :  first  Judah 
"  chosen  to  be  the  ruler  ;  and  of  the  house  of  Judah,  the  house 
of  my  father  ;  and  among  the  sons  of  my  father  He  liked  me 
to  make  me  king  over  Israel."  Among  the  assembly  there 
must  have  been  many  who  remembered  well  the  place  which 
David  had  held  in  his  father's  house  :  and  all  present  were  of 
course  aware  that  he  was  the  youngest,  and  that  his  elder 
brothers  had  served  submissively  in  his  army  after  the  first 
shock  of  his  high  distinction  over  them.  When  he  had  thus 
established  the  antecedent,  he  set  forth  before  them  the  reason 
of  his  choice,  which  was  that  Solomon  had  been  elected  by 
God  to  build  His  house. 

It  would  seem  that  this  house  of  God  must  have  become  by 
this  time  an  object  of  enthusiasm  with  Israel,  as  well  as  with  the 
king.  They  had  all  known  his  desire  and  his  disappointment, 
and  the  promise  that  had  been  made  to  him :  and  the  object  had 
become  a  national  one,  kept  always  before  the  inhabitants 
of  Jerusalem  and  the  provincial  visitors  to  the  capital  by  the 
immense  preparations  which  David  was  making,  the  hewing 
of  the  great  blocks  of  stone,  the  carvings  which  were  intended 
for  the  interior,  the  treasures  of  gold  and  silver  which  were 
laid  up  for  the  decoration  of  that  wonderful  place.  Jerusalem 
must  have  been  pervaded  with  the  odour  of  the  cedar  which 
was  measured  and  piled  up  in  masses  of  fragrant  planks  and 
pillars  :  and  throughout  all  Israel  the  women  must  have  been 
at  work  wherever  there  was  one  who  was  skilful  in 
embroidery,  on  sorne  vestment  or  curtain.  Thus  it  was 
carried  through  every  rank  of  the  people,  whose  pride  it  was 
to  be,  a  great  national  work,  an  undertaking  in  which  every 
man  should  have  his  share.  David  told  his  parliament  how 
he  had  been  hindered  because  he  was  a  man  of  war  with 
blood  on  his  hands,  from  this  sacred  work,  and  how  God 
had  said  "  Solomon  shall  build  me  an  house."  One  can 
imagine  the  interest,  the  profound  attention,  of  the  assembly. 


THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL 


The  ciders  among  them  would  feel  with  David  the  poignant 
disappointment  that  the  great  work  was  not  to  be  in  their 
day,  but  also  that  profound  Eastern  sentiment  of  satisfaction 
in  the  establishment  and  continuance  of  their  race,  which  was 
doubly  secured  by  the  promise  that  their  sons  should  carry 
it  out.  And  another  promise  was  involved,  one  that  must 
have  shed  balm  to  the  farthermost  corner  of  the  land,  that 
there  should  be  peace  upon  Israel.  Solomon  was  to  be 
no  man  of  war  like  his  father,  but  a  king  of  peace.  He  was 
to  have  rest  from  his  enemies.  The  younger  men  among 
the  captains  might  hear  the  news  without  satisfaction,  thinking 
of  promotion  arrested,  and  no  further  spoils  to  bring  home  ; 
but  what  balm  the  elder  envoys  would  carry  back  with  them 
to  the  depths  of  the  country,  what  encouragement  to  every 
industry,  what  comfort  to  every  heart !  "  I  will  give  him  rest 
from  all  his  enemies  round  about :  I  will  give  peace  and  quiet- 
ness to  Israel  in  his  days  :  for  his  name  shall  be  Solomon." 
It  was  in  itself  a  promise  and  assurance  to  make  the  haras.sed 
land  rejoice. 

When  the  king  had  made  this  oration  he  showed  to  his 
assembled  counsellors  the  preparations  he  had  made,  the 
masses  of  hewn  stone  all  ready  for  the  building,  the  treasury 
full  of  precious  metals,  the  jewels,  onyxes  and  glistening 
"  stones  of  divers  colours "  and  marble  in  abundance,  and 
gold  to  overlay  the  walls  of  that  precious  house  that  was 
to  be.  He  showed  them  what  had  been  the  work  of  all 
his  later  life,  his  collections  of  every  kind,  the  results  of 
endless  labour  and  thought.  And,  fired  as  they  must  have 
been  by  the  sight  and  by  his  glowing  words,  and  invitation 
to  all  to  take  their  part  in  this  great  national  undertaking, 
the  princes  and  the  chiefs  brought,  in  their  turn,  whatever 
they  had  that  was  precious  to  add  to  the  store,  jewels  no 
doubt  from  many  a  source,  taken  from  the  necks  of  many 
a  captive,  carpets  of  glorious  colours,  embroideries  upon 
which  the  women  at  home  had  spent  their  patient  lives. 
The  wife  working  in  the  cool  of  the  day  at  the  tent  door 
or  on  the  steps  of  her  house  had  her  .share  like  her  lord. 
There  was  a  national   contribution  "  offered  willingly  "  from 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VID 


all  the  chiefs  and  the  head  men,  and  the  treasuries  of  the 
unbuilt  Temple  were  filled  to  overflowing. 

This  was  the  last  great  public  act  of  David's  life.  He 
set  his  favourite  project  splendidly  on  foot,  and  settled  the 
succession  of  his  kingdom,  and  made  every  arrangement  for 
the  splendour  of  the  age  to  come  ;  and  then  the  princes  dis- 
persed— the  parliament  was  closed,  the  keys  turned  on  the 
stores.  Solomon  went  back  to  the  quietude  and  training  of 
his  youth,  and  David  to  such  care  of  his  kingdom  as  his 
advancing  age  permitted  :  and  then  came  that  pause  which 
occurs  continually  in  every  history,  the  interval  of  every  day 
between  the  past  and  future,  which  happily  has  no  record, 
which  is  only  our  human  life. 

Almost  the  last  stage  of  all  seems  to  have  been  reached 
in  David's  life,  when  another  sudden  disturbance  came  upon 
the  capital,  dispersing  the  somewhat  heavy  and  ominous 
calm  which  hung  over  it,  the  weary  suspense  of  an  ending 
life.  David  was  old,  shut  up  in  his  chamber  under  the 
charge  of  his  young  nurse,  unable  for  the  weight  of  sovereignty, 
and  rarely  seen,  we  may  believe,  in  the  city  of  which  he  was 
the  life  and  pride  :  and  all  men  had  grown  weary  of  the 
waiting,  the  pause  in  those  celebrations  and  solemnities 
which  held  the  national  life  together.  Solomon  after  his 
solemn  selection  as  the  heir  must  have  fallen  back  into  the 
quiet  and  occupied  no  prominent  place  :  and  it  is  no  wonder 
if  the  eldest  of  David's  surviving  sons,  the  legitimate  heir 
according  to  our  modern  ideas,  a  mature  man  in  the  full 
force  of  life,  deeply  wounded  and  indignant  no  doubt  by 
that  choice  of  a  younger  brother,  an  untried  boy,  to  occupy 
his  place,  should  have  made  an  attempt  to  recover  his  natural 
rights.  Adonijah  was  the  next  in  succession  after  Absalom, 
a  "  goodly  man  "  like  his  brother,  although  of  less  strength, 
fibre,  and  passion  than  he  whom  his  father  lamented  so 
deeply.  And  for  the  first  time  Joab,  a  man  who  under- 
stood no  such  changes  from  the  right  of  nature,  who  prob- 
ably had  an  angry  scorn  for  the  woman  who  had  been  the 
cause  of  so  much  harm,  and  resented  the  elevation  of  her 
son  :  and  to  whom  all  those  promises  of  peace  and  the  dream 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  123 

of  the  new  Temple,  and  all  the  wasteful  preparations  for  it, 
were  an  offence  :  turned  against  the  master  to  whom  he  had 
been  so  rude  an  adviser  often,  but  always  so  true  a  servant. 
Yet  probably  he  made  it  out  to  himself  as  no  turning  against 
David  but  rather  in  his  interest  as  well  as  that  of  the  nation, 
to  set  aside  the  foolishness  of  his  old  age,  and  establish  a 
successor  after  him  who  should  follow  the  old  conquering 
traditions,  and  continue  the  old  warlike  life.  What  was  this 
boy  Solomon  that  he  should  be  chosen  from  among  the 
lowest  ranks  of  the  family,  over  the  head  of  the  gallant 
prince  who  was  the  true  heir  ?  Abiathar  was  of  the  same 
mind,  the  priest  who  had  been  faithful  to  David  through 
all  his  troubles,  who  had  been  with  him  in  the  wilderness, 
and  among  the  Phili.stines,  sharing  all  the  evil  as  well  as 
the  good  of  his  life.  It  is  very  probable  that  even  among 
the  priesthood  there  were  two  parties,  one  maintaining  that 
a  tabernacle  for  the  Ark  was  all  that  God  had  ordained,  that 
the  Temple  was  but  a  dream,  and  all  the  silver  and  gold 
more  fit  to  be  divided  among  the  chiefs  and  people  than  to 
be  appropriated  to  this  visionary  use.  To  what  purpose  is 
this  waste  ?  Probably  both  Joab  and  Abiathar  conceived 
that  it  would  be  far  more  to  the  glory  of  Israel  to  diffuse 
such  wealth  among  the  people  than  to  accumulate  it  in  this 
one  place,  and  alienate  it  from  the  use  of  man  in  order  to 
appropriate  it  to  that  of  God,  to  whom  it  was  as  the  dust  of 
the  field.  And  Adonijah  was  the  legitimate  heir.  They 
were  the  true  royalists,  the  legitimists  of  their  day,  the 
Conservatives,  or  rather  the  Tories,  of  Israel,  determined 
against  all  innovations.  And  there  is  no  doubt  that  they 
had  much  reason  on  their  side  as  well  as  force,  with  the 
high  priest  and  the  commander-in-chief  at  their  head,  while 
David  dozed  over  the  fire  in  his  chamber  in  the  chill  and 
lethargy  of  his  old  age.  They  might  easily  conclude  that 
they  were  delivering  him,  too,  from  the  plotters  about  him, 
from  the  influence  of  Bathshcba  and  Nathan,  who  had  pro- 
cured the  elevation  of  that  other  young  pretender  to  the 
throne. 

These  great    leaders,   however,    reckoned    without    their 


124  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  parti 

king.  He  was  old,  older  than  his  years,  for  he  scarcely  seems 
to  have  been  more  than  seventy,  which  is  by  no  means 
invariably  an  age  of  decrepitude.  And  when  the  mother  of 
Solomon  came  in  breathless  with  the  news  of  the  great 
tumult  in  the  city  and  the  proclamation  of  the  new  king,  and 
eager  appeal  to  him,  and  reminder  of  his  promise  that  her 
son  should  succeed  him — followed  immediately  by  the 
prophet  with  the  same  news — David  roused  himself  at  once 
from  his  lethargy  and  gave  his  directions,  clear  and  brief 
without  any  weakness  or  wavering.  The  king's  name  had 
fallen  into  no  contempt  it  is  evident  in  Jerusalem,  the  city  of 
his  own  creation,  for  which  he  had  done  so  much.  And 
when  Solomon  was  led  forth  on  the  king's  own  mule,  with 
the  heralds  blowing  their  trumpets  before  him,  the  rebellion 
collapsed  in  a  moment.  It  was  scarcely  a  rebellion  indeed 
at  all.  Adonijah,  it  would  seem,  was  not  a  man  to  run  the 
risk  of  any  irremediable  act,  nor  were  Joab  and  Abiathar 
sufficiently  bold  to  advise  it.  The  legitimist  party  would 
seem  to  have  broken  up  in  th'e  most  complete  confusion  and 
panic,  as  if  there  was  neither  right  nor  reason  among  them. 
They  could  have  had  no  support  from  the  people,  and  no  true 
soul  even  among  themselves.  The  sound  of  the  trumpets 
blowing  down  from  the  city,  and  the  other  music  which 
accompanied  them,  when  it  reached  the  valley  where  the  con- 
spirators were  assembled  at  Enrogel  brought  an  immediate 
pause.  "Wherefore  is  this  noise  of  the  city  in  an  uproar?" 
The  sudden  news  brought  paleness  to  all  faces  and  dispersed 
the  revellers  like  the  chaff  before  the  wind.  Joab,  remembering 
well,  no  doubt,  the  many  grievances  that  David  had  against 
him,  was  the  first  to  disappear  from  the  scene.  David's  name 
was  stronger  yet  than  any  of  their  complots.  The  old  king, 
the  old  lion  roused  from  his  doze  of  age,  and  with  a  gleam  of 
long-restrained  fury  in  his  eyes,  called  to  his  bedside  the  son  in 
whose  favour  he  had  abdicated,  the  fortunate  prince  who  was 
to  build  the  house  of  God,  and  make  Israel  glorious  ;  and 
while  the  fading  fire  lasted  gave  him  a  few  fierce  brief  coun- 
sels, hot  and  bitter  with  that  anger  of  old  age  which  is  all 
the  more  strong  that  it  has  no  longer  any  personal  potency. 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  KING  OF  ISRAEL  125 

All  that  Joab  had  done  came  before  him  in  a  flash  of  angry 
recollection,  the  death  of  Abner,  the  death  of  Amasa — who 
can  doubt,  above  all,  the  death  of  Absalom  ?  "  Do  thou  there- 
fore according  to  thy  wisdom,  and  let  not  his  head  go  down 
to  the  grave  in  peace."  Was  this  charge  so  dreadful  as 
appears  to  us  ?  Joab  had  served  David  well,  but  he  had 
never  admitted  any  obstacle  to  his  private  vengeance,  and  he 
was  the  most  dangerous  foe  that  young  Solomon  could  have 
while  yet  unassured  upon  the  throne.  That  there  should  have 
come  into  the  old  king's  mind  after  this  his  own  bitter 
enemy  and  reviler,  the  Benjamite,  who  had  thrown  gibes 
and  curses  and  stones  at  him  on  his  flight  from  Jerusalem,  is 
more  difficult  to  understand.  Perhaps  the  recollection  flitted 
across  his  failing  mind  in  the  temporary  fury  which  the 
name  of  Joab  had  raised.  He  had  forgiven  Shimei  in  order 
not  to  stain  with  blood  the  day  of  his  return  to  Jerusalem  : 
but  had,  perhaps,  sgen  reason  since  to  regret  his  clemency, 
and  felt  Shimei,  too,  to  be  a  danger  and  probable  enemy  to 
the  new  king.  Upon  this  subject  we  can  only  conjecture. 
The  charge  leaves  a  painful  impression  on  the  mind,  as  of  a 
man  who  could  not  in  policy  avenge  his  own  quarrels,  but 
left  the  legacy  of  blood  to  his  son.  It  can  only  be  said 
that  not  in  these  days  nor  for  long  centuries  after  had  the 
nobler  thought  that  injuries  were  to  be  forgiven,  not 
avenged,  been  communicated  to  man  :  as  also  that  the 
flicker  of  suddenly- raised  passion  through  decrepitude, 
the  last  fierce  impulse  of  a  failing  mind  and  temporary 
outburst  of  the  capricious  fury  of  an  old  man's  shattered 
nerves  and  sinking  strength,  is  scarcely  to  be  laid  to  his 
charge. 

Here  is  a  softer  recollection,  with  which  to  take  leave  of 
the  hero,  the  song  with  which  the  words  and  the  days  of  the 
son  of  Jesse  came  to  an  end.  "  Now  these  be  the  last  words 
of  David  " — the  young  king,  his  eyes  full  of  ardour  and  of 
melancholy,  the  newly  anointed,  the  great  thinker  and  poet 
of  days  to  come,  sitting  thoughtfully  by. 

He  that  ruleth  over  men  should  be  just, 
RuUng  in  the  fear  of  God. 


126  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  parti 

And  he  shall  be  as  the  light  of  the  morning, 

When  the  sun  riseth, 

A  morning  without  clouds  ; 

Like  the  tender  grass  out  of  the  earth 
In  the  clear  shining  after  rain. 

Although  my  house  be  not  so  with  God  ; 

Yet  hath  He  made  with  me  an  everlasting  covenant, 

Ordered,  and  sure  : 

This  is  my  salvation,  and  my  desire. 

There  is  something  extraordinarily  pathetic  in  the  old 
poet's  comparison  unspoken,  of  his  own  old  and  failing  state 
with  that  of  him  who  was  as  the  light  of  the  morning  :  and 
when  we  remember  who  that  was,  who  was  thus  rising  like  a 
morning  without  clouds  over  Jerusalem,  the  great  ruler,  the 
most  splendid  and  potent  of  all  the  monarchs  of  the  East, 
the  sage  whose  disillusion  has  pervaded  the  whole  earth,  the 
master  and  heir  of  all  things,  satisfied  with  none — the  com- 
parison grows  more  expressive  still. 

Thus  David  died,  and  the  greatest  romance  of  history, 
let  us  seek  it  in  what  records  we  will,  came  to  an  end.  And 
Jerusalem  sat  solitary,  as  another  poet  in  still  deeper  affliction 
proclaimed  of  her  in  after  days,  and  mourned  for  her  king. 


CHAPTER  IV 

SOLOMON 

The  traditionary  character  of  Solomon,  the  greatest  potent- 
ate and  philosopher  of  the  East,  the  man  above  all  others 
who  has  influenced  the  development  of  that  vast  world 
of  sentiment,  passion  and  thought  which  the  passage  of 
centuries  has  scarcely  made  more  comprehensible  to  us, 
the  world  of  the  subtle  Jew  and  the  dreamy,  yet  fierce 
Mohammedan,  was  as  different  from  that  of  his  father  as 
can  well  be  imagined.  In  such  wonderful  figures  there  is 
certainly  no  heredity.  How  the  warrior  of  the  desert,  the 
shepherd  of  the  hills  and  valleys,  the  paladin  and  hero  of 
romance  who  was  his  predecessor,  could  have  produced  that 
man  of  observation  and  thought,  that  great  spectator  of 
the  ages,  who  was  at  the  same  time  so  great  an  actor  on 
the  far  distant  and  crowded  stage  that  it  is  difficult  to 
conceive  how  little  Judea  could  have  contained  him — is 
beyond  the  imagination  of  man.  He  rises  in  that  dim 
distance  the  firstborn  of  all  the  philosophers,  arriving  at 
conclusions  which  the  latest  have  done  little  more  than 
carry  out :  the  first  great  thinker,  whose  musings  have 
breathed  through  the  whole  world,  neither  corrected  nor 
rendered  obsolete  by  all  advancing  lore  or  increasing 
wisdom  of  mankind.  What  progress  that  race  has  made 
since  then  !  how  changed  are  all  our  conditions !  there 
is  no  comparison  between  the  circumstances  of  well- 
being  which  surround  the  poorest  among  us,  and  those 
precarious  and   painful  conditions  of  existence  in  which  our 


128  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  parti 

own  early  ancestors,  much  more  the  older  ages  of  the  world, 
lived  and  died  :  yet  beyond  the  rude  poetry  of  David,  and 
the  broken  thoughts  of  Solomon,  humanity  has  not  advanced. 
We  express  the  loftiest  aspirations  of  our  hearts,  and  the 
deepest  and  saddest  convictions  of  our  minds,  in  their 
unchanged  words  to-day.  Useless  to  attempt  to  examine 
whether  that  poetry  and  those  thoughts  are  but  traditionary 
of  these  two  names,  upon  which  subject  we  can  never 
perhaps  arrive  at  any  certainty  either  on  one  side  or 
the  other.  I  have  already  ventured  to  say  that  when 
the  question  is  between  unvarying  tradition  (not  to  take 
refuge  in  any  shelter  of  inspiration),  absolute  verisimilitude, 
the  accompanying  picture  of  the  two  men  of  whose 
history  the  Psalms  and  the  Poem  of  Ecclesiastes  are  illus- 
trations— and  the  researches  of  a  small  sect  of  German 
philologists,  I  prefer  to  take  the  word  of  the  older  ages. 
Since  anyhow  it  must  be  a  matter  of  faith  in  any  case,  the 
evidence  on  the  one  side  is,  I  think,  infinitely  more  trust- 
worthy than  that  on  the  other.  But  to  the  reader  who 
thinks  that  David  had  no  share,  even  in  the  Psalms  which 
illustrate  his  life  ;  and  that  not  Solomon  but  some  nameless 
sage  is  the  author  of  Ecclesiastes,  what  can  be  said  ?  No 
more,  I  think,  than  can  be  said  to  the  man  who  believes 
that  Lord  Bacon  and  not  William  Shakespeare  wrote 
Hamlet.  This  theory  scarcely  diminishes  the  antiquity  to 
our  ken,  and  much  increases  the  wonder  of  those  surpassing 
productions  of  genius.  They  come  to  us  from  the  dimness 
of  a  distance  which  there  is  no  means  of  penetrating,  and 
remain  still  the  earliest  utterances  of  humanity,  as  they  are, 
so  far  as  we  are  aware,  upon  their  chief  subjects,  almost  its 
final  word.  Our  ancestors  in  Scotland  falsified  history  and 
invented,  to  their  own  glory,  a  whole  line  of  visionary  kings  : 
but  how  far  are  they  behind  the  splendid  fictionists  (according 
to  the  critics)  who  flourished  nameless  among  those  primitive 
Jews  !  for  Scots  historians  put  no  immortal  poetry  into  the 
mouth  of  their  fabulous  Fergus,  no  essence  of  human  wisdom 
to  the  credit  of  any  Achaius.  Solomon  and  his  philosophy, 
and  David  and  his  Psalms,  on  the  contrary,  are  rooted  among 


SOLOMON  129 


the  deepest  certainties  of  the  wide  Eastern  world  which 
brought  them  forth. 

Solomon  the  man  of  rest  is  a  new  personality  altogether 
in  primitive  history.  He  rises  out  of  that  tumultuous,  yet 
vague,  tribe  of  David's  sons  without  any  right  of  priority, 
nay  with  almost  the  reverse,  with,  one  would  have  imagined, 
a  prejudice  against  him  as  the  son  of  the  woman  who  had 
caused  the  darkest  tragic  episode  in  David's  life,  chosen  by 
God  in  the  exercise  of  a  selection  which,  to  our  thinking, 
might  almost  be  called  arbitrary,  the  same  which  took  not 
only  David  from  the  sheep-cotes,  but  Mohammed  from 
among  the  camel -drivers,  and  Dante  from  the  Florentine 
bourgeoisie,  and  Shakespeare  from  the  actors  of  a  primitive 
theatre,  to  make  of  them,  unheralded,  unexpected,  no  better 
than  their  neighbours,  the  instructors  of  a  world.  We  are 
not  told  even  that  Solomon  was  a  "  goodly  man,"  to  pre- 
dispose Jerusalem  to  receive  him,  as  she  had  tentatively 
received  his  elder  brothers.  When  he  was  led  along  the 
stony  streets  upon  his  father's  mule,  with  all  its  royal 
trappings,  the  trumpets  sounding  before  him,  and,  of  all  the 
captains  of  Israel,  only  stout  Bcnaiah  behind,  to  where  the 
Ark  within  its  tent  stood  awaiting  the  house  in  which  he  was 
to  enclose  it,  we  may  well  imagine  how  the  throngs  in  the 
city,  the  men  gathering  in  irresolute  bands,  the  women  at 
every  window  and  doorway,  stood  open-mouthed,  not  know- 
ing for  the  moment  which  side  to  take.  Adonijah's  guests, 
in  all  their  bravery,  had  gone  by  but  a  few  hours  before 
to  the  great  feast  in  the  valley  which  the  splendid  heir- 
presumptive,  the  legitimate  successor,  was  giving — and  what 
was  this  young  prince,  the  man  of  peace,  undistinguished  yet 
by  either  valour  or  greatness  ? 

The  crowd  must  have  gathered  dumbly  after  him, 
pouring  down  to  the  door  of  the  tabernacle.  But 
when  the  priest  came  out  from  within  the  mysterious 
curtains  with  the  con.secrated  oil,  and  in  the  sight  of  all 
men  anointed  the  grave  young  king,  a  sudden  enthusiasm 
would  seem  to  have  seized  the  crowd.  The  sound  of  the 
uproar  in  the  city  blew  downward   upon  the  wind    to   the 

K 


I30  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

cool  margin  of  that  well  in  the  valley  where  Adonijah  sat 
with  his  guests.  There  was  a  moment,  no  doubt,  of  con- 
sternation, of  varying  and  panic-stricken  thoughts,  of  pale 
faces :  and  then  the  assembly  melted  hurriedly  away. 
Evidently  the  sound  of  those  shouts  was  absolutely  con- 
vincing, and  every  man  recognised  that  there  was  in  David's 
legitimate  heir  no  stamina  to  stand  against  the  young 
usurper  of  his  rights.  Not  so  was  Absalom  ever  abandoned. 
Joab  for  once  disappeared  without  a  word  to  say. 

It  was  no  easy  heritage  which  David  left  to  his  successor. 
All  the  schemes  of  the  harem  were  against  him,  the  influence 
of  the  priest  Abiathar,  still  more  the  influence  of  the  com- 
mander-in-chief: and  no  doubt  the  prejudices  of  all  the 
military  section  of  the  people  whose  prosperity  depended 
upon  war  and  plunder  rather  than  upon  peace  and  the  arts  of 
peace.  The  summary  manner  in  which  he  got  rid  of  the 
competitor  to  the  throne,  and  of  that  obdurate  and  power- 
ful Joab,  whose  unresisting  end  strikes  us  with  amazement 
after  the  masterful  life  in  which  he  had  carried  everything 
with  so  high  a  hand — must,  however,  have  proved  at  once  to 
all  Jerusalem  looking  on,  that  this  new  king  though  a  man  of 
peace  was  not  one  to  be  trifled  with  or  from  whom  any  weak- 
ness of  clemency  and  toleration  was  to  be  expected.  The  man 
of  thought  was  also  a  man  of  action,  prompt,  trenchant,  and 
decided.  No  doubt  it  was  policy  which  led  him  to  make  a 
round  of  the  ancient  high  places  from  which  he  was  about  to 
take  all  the  importance,  and  specially  to  that  in  Gibeon  where 
the  ancient  tabernacle  of  the  wilderness,  the  tent  in  which 
the  Ark  had  been  originally  sheltered,  with  all  its  old-world 
ornamentations,  still  stood,  and  the  huge  altar  of  brass  upon 
which  sacrifices  had  been  offered  from  the  earliest  days 
of  the  national  life.  It  would  conciliate  the  people  round, 
perhaps  startled  by  the  idea  that  there  was  henceforward  to 
be  but  one  centre  of  national  worship  in  Israel  to  the  dis- 
credit of  their  own  ancient  shrine,  that  one  of  the  first  acts  of 
the  new  king  should  be  to  visit  and  offer  innumerable  sacri- 
fices upon  that  altar.  It  is  curious  to  realise  what  an 
accompaniment    to  every  religious   service  must  have    been 


SOLOMON  131 


that  odour  of  burning,  the  heavy  smoke  and  smell  of  the 
sacrifices,  so  much  of  them  as  was  actually  consumed  upon 
the  altar,  which  all  the  incense,  and  the  pure  air  of  the  open 
eminences,  the  high  places  on  which  these  altars  were  gener- 
ally raised,  could  scarcely  dissimulate.  The  best  way  of 
doing  so  no  doubt  was  that  of  the  feast  and  reverent  con- 
sumption "  before  the  Lord  "  of  the  greater  part  of  the  offering  : 
while  the  column  of  smoke  ascending,  so  clear  a  symbol  to 
the  mind  of  the  beholder  of  the  blood  and  fire  with  which 
symbolically  his  own  life,  forfeit  to  justice,  was  redeemed,  had 
its  aspect  of  stern  yet  solemn  poetry  as  well,  which  must 
have  reconciled  the  minds  of  the  people  to  this  otherwise 
disagreeable  feature  of  their  worship.  There  is  not  a  word, 
however,  of  this  in  all  the  record  :  no  sensitive  priest  objected, 
no  worshipper  had  a  complaint  to  make.  The  burning  flesh 
was  a  sweet  savour  unto  the  Lord.  Close  examination 
however,  shows  that  the  amount  thus  consumed  was  com- 
paratively small,  so  that,  perhaps,  the  trial  to  the,  in  this 
respect  not  very  keen,  perceptions  of  the  East,  might  not 
have  been  nearly  so  great  as  we  suppose. 

The  remarkable  vision  which  was  vouchsafed  to  Solomon 
in  Gibeon,  after  he  had  accomplished  all  the  rites  of 
religion  there,  is  both  touching  and  impressive,  although  we 
are  distinctly  informed  with  greater  emphasis  than  in  any 
other  instance  of  a  similar  kind,  that  "  Solomon  awoke,  and 
behold  it  was  a  dream."  Yet  a  dream  full  of  instruction  and 
consolation.  He  was  still  "  young  and  tender  "  according  to 
David's  description  ;  "  I  am  but  as  a  little  child  "  according  to 
his  own.  And  his  great  heart  was  all  absorbed  in  the  thought 
of  that  work  which  he  had  to  do,  inexperienced  as  he 
was,  and  without  help  or  counsellor.  "  Give  therefore  thy 
servant  an  understanding  heart,  that  I  may  discern  between 
good  and  evil."  What  more  fit  petition  could  be  put  forth  by 
any  monarch  ?  It  shows  us  better  than  anything  else  could  do 
that  sensation  of  awe  at  his  own  responsibilities  and  absolute 
preoccupation  with  them,  which  is  one  of  the  most  impressive 
aspects  of  royalty,  and  still  more  of  royal  youth.  The  ill- 
fated  heir  of  France  wept  in  the  tremor  of  that  awe  when 


132  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D  part  i 

the  news  of  his  accession  was  brought  to  him  ;  and  well 
might  he  weep.  Solomon  was  not  of  this  mild  nature  :  yet 
his  prayer  shows  the  fixed  idea  of  his  mind,  which  was  not 
upon  the  splendours  or  greatness  of  his  position,  but  on  its 
difficulty  and  the  dread  charge  thus  laid  upon  his  shoulders. 
"  An  understanding  heart."  We  know  little  except  in  the 
world-renowned  example  called  par  excellence  the  judgment 
of  Solomon  which  follows  in  the  tale  of  the  two  women,  of  his 
judicial  wisdom  :  but  that  he  possessed  the  understanding 
heart  in  every  sense  of  the  words,  his  works  leave  no 
manner  of  doubt. 

The  historian  would  seem  to  have  considered  that  one 
superlative  instance  of  understanding  and  judgment  to  have 
been  enough,  as  who  should  stop  to  prove  a  thing  so  spread 
about  the  world  and  everywhere  known  as  the  wisdom  of 
Solomon  ?  and,  leaving  that,  transports  us  at  once  to 
Jerusalem  to  the  busiest  scene  of  activity,  the  very  climax 
of  life  and  occupation.  The  sheds  and  storehouses  in  which 
all  David's  wealth  of  preparation  for  the  Temple  was  laid 
up,  and  where  the  armies  of  workmen  he  had  employed 
were  busy  in  their  labours,  must  have  been  outside  the 
gates,  spread  over  the  hollows  where  there  would  be  room 
for  all  their  operations,  yet  near  enough  for  constant  super- 
vision. The  men  must  have  clustered  like  bees  about  the 
huge  masses  of  stone  which  the  excavators  of  our  day  have 
discovered  with  amazement  deep  under  the  rubbish  of  ages, 
the  foundations  of  the  great  superstructure  to  come.  They 
look  as  if  giants  alone  could  have  hewed  them  and  elephants 
dragged  them  to  their  place,  though  it  was  but  the  skilful 
masons  of  Tyre  with  their  Hebrew  journeymen  who 
shaped  and  severed  these  prodigious  blocks.  The  deep 
quarries  in  which  they  were  hewn  and  shaped  lay  close 
by  :  and  the  workshops  where  the  fine  stone  carvings  were 
prepared,  the  furnaces  of  the  metal-workers,  would  all  find 
ample  place  in  the  valley  between  Jerusalem  and  Moriah, 
along  with  the  sheds  for  the  carpenters  with  their  piles 
and  stacks  of  fragrant  wood.  In  the  city  itself,  no  doubt, 
the  fine  work,  wood-carving,  and  the  beating  out  of  the  more 


TlIK    WALL   OK    WAILINU  :     ANCIUNT    WALL   OK    TBMFLB    ENCLOSUKK 


SOLOMON  13s 


precious  metals  into  plates  for  the  lining  of  the  interior,  and 
all  the  ornamental  work,  in  some  cases  adorned  with  pre- 
cious stones,  must  have  been  carried  on,  in  special  workshops 
and  under  close  superintendence.  It  is  apparent  that  all 
this  immense  accumulation  of  industries  must  have  been 
going  on  for  years  during  the  reign  of  David,  who  had  set 
the  masons  to  work  to  hew  the  stones,  and  "  prepared  iron 
in  abundance  for  the  nails,  for  the  doors  of  the  gates  and 
for  the  joinings,  and  brass  in  abundance  without  weight " — 
not  to  speak  of  the  designs  minutely  prepared,  and  the  cal- 
culations of  quantities  and  values  required.  How  far  we 
may  trust  to  the  numbers  and  statements  of  weight  it  would 
be  difficult  to  say,  for  nothing  is  so  likely  to  have  suffered 
in  the  course  of  innumerable  transcriptions  as  these  details, 
which  in  many  cases,  and  especially  in  the  successive 
numberings  of  the  people,  seem  inconceivably  large  for  so 
small  a  territory. 

What  is  more  interesting  is  to  realise  the  extraordinary 
stir  of  national  life  which  must  have  been  occasioned  by  so 
much  employment,  so  much  collected  treasure,  and  the 
growth  of  trade  and  communication  with  other  surrounding 
nations  in  the  peaceful  way  of  mutual  use  and  service. 
Tyre,  the  great  trading  centre  of  the  age,  was  brought  into 
the  closest  relations  to  Jerusalem  by  this  prodigious  work, 
and  bartered  her  cedars  against  the  grain  and  oil  and  wine 
of  the  rich  plains  of  Palestine,  and  lent  her  sailors  to  man 
the  ships  that  Solomon  commissioned,  and  set  up  a  close 
alliance  with  those  rude  and  warlike  neighbours  who  were 
now  signalising  their  entrance  into  the  brotherhood  of  civilisa- 
tion and  progressive  life  by  so  great  an  enterprise.  Then 
as  now  the  Hebrews  seem  rather  to  have  hired  workmen 
and  skill  in  manufacture  than  to  have  produced  them  ;  but 
already  the  cunning  of  the  negotiator  and  merchant  must 
have  existed  among  them.  They  had  long  made  use  of 
tributaries,  the  subject  villages  whose  population  had  been 
spared  in  their  first  inroad  into  Palestine,  partly  from  weak- 
ness and  partly  from  policy,  whose  descendants  probably 
remain  there  to  this  day.     And  already  the  future  manipu- 


■36 


7'HE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VID 


lators  of  European  finance  had  found  out  the  way  of 
exchanging  the  productions  of  their  vassals,  the  Gibeonites 
and  Jebusites,  who  laboured  the  fields  and  worked  the 
winepress  and  crushed  the  oil-berries  for  them,  for  the  manu- 
factures of  the  trading  Tyrians,  and  the  wonders  brought 
from    beyond    the    seas.      This   was    their   first   introduction 


A    CEDAK    OF    LEBANON 


into  those  commercial    affairs    in    which    they  have  had   so 
much  importance  since. 

And  thus  the  little  hill  city,  built  for  defence  upon  the 
rocks  and  declivities,  with  strait  skirts  gathered  about  her, 
and  a  dwelling  so  steep  that  the  lame  and  the  blind  were 
supposed  able  to  defend  her  against  the  boldest  raid,  ex- 
panded in  one  generation  into  a  great  city  enlarged  and 
beautified,  towards  which  the  wealth  of  the  whole  country 
flowed,   a  centre  of  industry  where  every  skilled   workman 


SOLOMON  137 


was  sure  of  finding  employment  and  every  manufacturer 
a  market  for  his  wares.  The  quickening  of  life,  the  new 
activity,  the  change-  from  that  restricted  village  fortress  with 
jealous  gates  ready  to  close  at  every  rumour,  is  too  mar- 
vellous for  description.  Perhaps  the  momentary  effect  was 
not  at  first  one  of  improvement.  If  some  old  Jebusite 
strolling  forth  upon  the  walls  in  the  evening  burst  forth 
into  outcries  of  indignation  like  the  wailings  of  Mr.  Ruskin, 
over  the  glow  of  the  furnaces  in  the  valley,  the  dust  of  the 
masons'  yards,  which  spread  everywhere,  instead  of  the 
unbroken  green  and  the  breath  of  flowers  that  had  been 
wont  to  breathe  upward  upon  the  evening  air,  who  could 
wonder  ?  And  when  scaffoldings  began  to  rise,  and  deep 
pits  of  foundation  to  be  dug,  upon  the  green  hill  where 
heretofore  the  peaceful  labours  of  Araunah's  threshing-floor 
had  been  the  only  object  which  disturbed  the  serenity  of 
the  landscape,  the  cornfields  below  and  the  terraced  vines, 
and  here  and  there  a  group  of  feathery  olives  above — how 
hotly  would  the  old  men  talk  of  the  ravages  made  by  the 
new  ideas  and  the  destruction  of  all  that  was  most  dear 
and  beautiful  and  homelike  in  that  once  verdant  and  fertile 
scene !  No  more  an  unbroken  prospect  of  soft  swelling 
hills  and  green  hollows,  the  Mount  of  Olives  rising  up  to 
the  skies,  the  Kedron  purling  over  its  pebbles  in  the  valley 
below,  the  soft  contour  of  Mount  Moriah,  one  of  those  little 
hills  of  Judah  that  were  like  lambs,  filling  the  centre  of  the 
scene — but  all  over  the  slopes,  and  in  the  low  ravine  beyond, 
the  disfiguring  workshops,  the  gleam  of  the  fires,  the  sound 
of  chisel  and  hammer,  taking  all  the  repose  and  sweetness 
out  of  the  air  !  Thus  the  old  inhabitant  must  have  thought, 
with  a  sigh  for  the  good  old  times,  when  his  own  Jebusite 
chief  held  the  little  town,  and  all  was  silence  around  :  and 
so,  too,  must  have  thought  the  group  of  old  soldiers  who 
would  look  out,  contemptuous,  upon  all  those  arts  of  peace, 
and  remind  each  other  of  the  stirring  trumpet  notes  when 
great  Joab,  now  dead  and  gone,  or  greater  David,  had  called 
them  together  and  led  them  down,  with  clang  of  sword  and 
shimmer  of  spear,  down  into  the  plain  to  victory  and  spoil. 


138  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  tart  i 

But  while  these  old  Conservatives  had  their  grumble 
apart,  what  robust  life  must  have  poured  through  the  land 
where  everybody  was  busy,  what  commotion  and  activity  in 
all  the  streets  !  Solomon,  the  young  king,  had  other  tastes 
than  his  father.  He  made  a  splendid  alliance  with  the 
greatest  of  ancient  kingdoms,  bringing  Pharaoh's  daughter 
to  his  palace  on  the  hill,  not  contenting  himself  with  any 
wayside  beauty  as  his  father  had  done — Pharaoh's  daughter, 
a  descendant  of  the  race  which  had  made  slaves  of  Israel, 
and  which  had  suffered  so  sorely  by  means  of  that  strange 
and  irreconcilable  people !  What  greater  proof  could  be 
of  the  new  position  of  Israel  and  the  final  place  which  she 
had  won  for  herself  among  the  nations  of  the  earth  when 
the  great  King  of  Egypt  did  not  despise  her  alliance  ? 
The  Egyptian  princess  would  come  with  new  luxuries  and 
splendours  in  her  train,  always  adding  to  the  rising  tide  of 
wealth  and  work  and  universal  embellishment.  And  as 
the  seasons  went  on,  and  year  followed  year,  the  great 
building  growing  on  the  hill  would  gradually  absorb  the 
interest  of  Jerusalem,  a  perpetual  object  of  observation  and 
criticism  and  remark,  of  national  enthusiasm  and  pride.  No 
one  could  look  out  from  the  windows  of  the  palace,  from  the 
heads  of  the  steep  streets,  from  any  housetop  or  rampart, 
without  seeing  before  him  the  rising  walls,  the  vast  edifice 
taking  shape,  the  great  new  thing  slowly  growing  in  white- 
ness and  noble  proportion  like  a  magic  dwelling.  The  great 
stones  must  have  been  dragged  up  the  hill  with  shoutings 
and  outcries  of  men,  and  labouring  breath  of  animals  taking 
their  share,  they,  too,  in  their  voiceless  way,  in  the  offering  ; 
but  once  there,  were  poised,  without  noise  of  building,  one 
upon  another  in  their  courses  without  sound  of  the  hammer 
or  any.  tool.  It  would  become  the  first  idea  in  the  morning 
with  all  that  highly-stimulated  and  excited  people  to  look 
out  and  see  how  much  had  been  done  in  the  previous  twenty- 
four  hours,  what  new  doorway  had  become  visible,  what 
sculptured  lintel  added,  or  wing  of  cherub,  or  wreath  of 
pomegranate.  And  what  expeditions  there  would  be  on 
the  Sabbath  Days  and   when   the  feast  of  the   new  moon 


SOLOMON  139 


gave  a  little  break  in  the  continuity  of  labour,  across 
the  valley  where  the  forges  and  ateliers  were  for  the 
moment  silent,  to  see  the  progress  of  that  great  object  which 
was  the  chief  thing  in  life  !  The  women  must  have  streamed 
out  in  bands,  with  their  veils  and  ornaments,  to  wonder  and 
admire  and  point  out  to  each  other  the  added  height  since 
their  last  visit,  the  growth  like  enchantment  of  that  house  of 
God  which  was  more  wonderful  than  any  dream,  and  the 
rising  courses  of  the  mighty  wall  surrounding  it,  rooted  on 


VAI.LEV    OK   JliHOSHAFHAT,    Willi    HOCK.s    dl     MLOA; 
OP   THE   TVKIAN    MASONS 


the  rock,  from  which,  on  the  eastern  side,  they  could  look 
down  upon  Kedron  and  the  deep  valley  winding  away  south- 
ward where,  on  the  rocks  of  the  opposite  slope,  the  Tyrian 
workmen  had  built  their  low  houses,  half  excavation,  half 
construction,  and  on  the  quiet  pool  under  the  hill  catching 
the  glimpses  of  the  sun — the  pool  and  the  village  of  Siloam. 
To  us  how  full  of  wonderful  association  is  that  scene  where 
the  Cyclopean  blocks  of  the  ancient  foundations  still  lie  securely 
bedded  in  the  rock  !  the  Mount  of  Olives,  that  sacred  hill 
of  meditation,  the  road  that  winds  along  its  side  to  little 
Bethany  round    the  corner  of  the  hill,  and    deep  down  in 


I40  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D  part  i 

the  valley  the  old,  old  group  of  hoary  trees  which  mark 
Gethsemane,  that  spot  full  of  awe  and  anguish.  But  no 
such  knowledge  was  in  the  mind  of  the  lighthearted  groups 
which  must  have  leant  over  to  see  the  huge  courses  of  new- 
laid  stones,  the  men  explaining,  the  women  wondering  as  in 
any  holiday  expedition  of  to-day.  These  blocks  of  deepest 
antiquity,  perhaps,  and  certainly  one  other  silent  witness,  the 
dark  mass  of  rock — now  canopied  and  enshrined  in  one  of 
the  most  exquisite  pieces  of  Oriental  building,  the  so-called 
Mosque  of  Omar,  the  Dome  of  the  Rock — which  may  have 
been  Abraham's  altar,  but  at  all  events  is  an  unchanged 
portion  of  the  original  hill-top — are  the  sole  existing  things 
which  saw  the  commotion  and  excitement  of  that  day. 

One  other  great  work,  a  feat  of  engineering  and  con- 
structive skill,  must  have  been  the  bridges,  the  relics  of 
which  have  been  found  within  this  generation,  with  which 
the  deep  but  narrow  valley  between  the  city  of  David  and 
the  Mount  Moriah  was  crossed.  The  Arch  called  Robinson's, 
and  which  is  close  to  .the  most  ancient  portion  of  the  Temple 
wall,  now  known  as  the  wailing  place  of  the  Jews,  where  the 
pilgrims  of  that  nation  or  residents  in  Jerusalem  still  assemble 
to  repeat  their  litany  of  lamentation — and  the  other  relic 
near  the  south-east  corner,  known  as  Wilson's  Arch,  show 
where  those  wonderful  highways  were.  They  crossed  the 
valley  something  in  the  same  way  as  do  the  bridges  in 
Edinburgh,  spanning  the  ravine,  and  making  locomotion 
more  easy  than  when  the  slope  of  Zion  on  one  side  and 
Moriah  on  the  other  had  to  be  ascended  and  descended  on 
every  passage.  The  acclivity  of  Mount  Moriah  on  which 
the  Temple  was  placed  was  loftier  than  the  terraced  slope 
upon  which  the  new  town  of  Edinburgh  is  founded,  but 
otherwise  the  North  Bridge  in  that  beautiful  city  affords  a 
good  example  of  what  Solomon's  bridges  must  have  been. 
The  Tyropoeon  valley  is  now  filled  up  with  masses  of  ruin, 
and  houses  built  upon  these  masses,  thus  equalising  more 
or  less  the  natural  level,  but  still  the  ravine  is  sufficiently 
marked  and  the  bridge  of  Solomon,  did  it  exist,  would  be  a 
great    solace    to   the  weary  pilgrim,  who  has  at  present  to 


CHAP.  IV  '    SOLOMON  141 

descend  the  precipitous  street  of  the  city  and  mount  again 
long  flights  of  steps  to  reach  the  area  of  the  Temple,  the 
"  Noble  Sanctuary  "  of  the  Mohammedans,  to  whom  it  is,  as 
to  us,  though  from  different  reasons,  with  one  exception  the 
most  sacred  spot  on  earth. 

It  was  not  upon  the  Temple  alone,  however,  that 
Solomon,  though  it  was  his  special  mission,  spent  all  his 
thoughts.  He  would  seem  to  have  organised  every  kind  of 
industry  and  trade.  His  merchants,  our  authorised  version 
tells  us,  brought  him  "  yarn  out  of  Egypt,"  but  this  seems 
based  upon  a  mistaken  translation,  and  it  appears  that  it  was 
troops  of  horses  which  his  messengers  brought,  and 
chariots  which  hitherto  had  been  rare  in  Judea,  the  strongest 
arm  of  military  service.  He  "  made  silver  and  gold  at 
Jerusalem  as  plenteous  as  stones,"  filling  the  country 
with  work  and  money,  and  the  perpetual  coming  and 
going  of  commerce.  This  it  would  seem  could  not  be  done 
without  a  certain  oppression  of  the  people,  corv^es  as  in 
France,  forced  labour  and  interference  with  personal  liberty 
in  order  to  swell  the  greatness  of  the  king  and  kingdom. 
The  appeal  of  the  elders  of  Israel  in  the  succeeding  age  to 
Rehoboam  to  case  them  of  the  grievous  yoke  which  his 
father  had  put  upon  them  no  doubt  refers  to  this,  a  natural 
expedient  of  the  time,  too  common  among  the  other  races 
to  be  remarked,  though  always  resented  by  the  fierce  and 
wayward  independence  of  the  Israelites.  There  is,  how- 
ever, no  trace  of  resistance  or  discontent  while  Solomon's 
powerful  hand  held  the  reins  of  state.  His  great  alliances, 
his  great  undertakings,  the  links  of  profit  and  mutual  interest 
which  he  formed  between  himself  and  all  the  surrounding 
peoples,  fully  fulfilled  the  promise  of  his  first  years  that  he 
should  be  a  man  of  peace  and  have  rest  from  his  enemies  ; 
but  yet  he  was  no  soft  or  effeminate  prince,  altogether 
absorbed  in  the  arts  of  peace.  He  would  seem  to  have 
extended  the  boundaries  of  Israel  on  all  sides,  and  specially 
to  have  completed  the  subjugation  of  those  remnants  of  the 
original  people,  the  ancient  Canaanitish  races  which  the 
invading  tribes  had   not  the  strength,  perhaps,  let  us  hope, 


142 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID 


had  not  the  heart  to  drive  out  of  their  cities.  Neither  did 
Solomon  drive  them  out ;  he  made  of  them  useful  servants, 
sometimes  indeed  not  much  more  than  slaves,  doing  the  hard 
work  to  which  the  proud  Hebrews  would  not  bow  their  neck, 
quarrying  in  the  stony  depths  of  the  hills,  and  dragging  the 
loads  of  stones,  the  cargoes  of  wood  from  Jaffa,  all  the  ruder 
labours  necessary.  The  number  of  these  original  inhabitants, 
sometimes  holding  their  own  in  spurts  of  little  wars,  as  the 
Jebusites    had    held    their   town   against    David,    sometimes 


VAMUCH,    A    PORT    OF    LEBANON 


tolerated  and  linked  by  bonds  of  familiarity  and  neighbour- 
hood with  the  conquering  race,  never  so  oppressed  as  were, 
for  example,  the  Saxons  by  the  Normans,  was  evident^ 
greater  than  we  have  any  idea  of,  and  continued  to  represent 
a  distinct  element  in  the  population  for  centuries,  preventing 
at  all  times  the  perfect  homogeneity  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Judea  and  the  land  of  Israel,  and  the  full  realisation  of  the 
promise.  That  a  great  part  of  the  hard  work  of  Solomon's 
buildings  fell  upon  their  shoulders  is  evident,  and  as  the  use 
of  horses  was  a  new  thing,  and  the  roads  little  adapted  for 
any  cartage,  all  the  heavy  loads  of  material  must  have  been 
carried   to  Jerusalem   either  by  mules  or  camels  or  by  the 


SOLOMON  143 


work  of  man.  Neither  mules  nor  camels  could  carry  con- 
veniently the  great  logs  of  cedar,  still  less  drag  forth  the  blocks 
of  stone  from  the  quarries :  therefore  it  must  in  some  cases  have 
been  by  sheer  hard  labour  of  scores  of  men  that  the  transport 
was  accomplished.  All  this  heavy  work  would  seem  to  have 
been  laid  upon  the  tributaries,  the  aborigines  of  the  country. 
"  Of  the  children  of  Israel  did  Solomon  make  no  bondmen," 
but  the  Amorites,  Hittites,  Perrizites,  Hivites,  and  Jebusites 
were  levied  en  masse  for  this  forced  service.  The  corvee 
would  lose  its  unpopularity  when  thus  exacted  from  the 
natural  vassals,  and  it  does  not  appear  that  any  rebellious 
sentiment  arose  among  those  labouring  crowds.  The  Israel- 
ites filled  the  places  of  overseers  and  captains,  and  they 
were  sent  to  Lebanon,  to  the  wood-cutting,  in  relays,  their 
period  of  service  being  one  month  in  three. 

How  far  all  this  quickened  life  and  increase  of  work  and 
activity  was  to  the  real  advantage  and  enrichment  of  the  land, 
however,  it  is  very  difficult  to  decide.  A  splendid  capital  is 
a  glory  to  a  well-established  and  stedfastly-governed  kingdom, 
but  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  Israelites  were  sufficiently 
tamed  and  civilised  to  appreciate  it,  or  whether  the  distant 
shores  of  Zebulun  and  Naphtali,  the  outlying  tribes  of  Gad 
and  Dan,  would  care  much  for  what  went  on  upon  the  heights 
of  that  far-off  Jerusalem.  The  inhabitants  of  these  regions 
were  described  as  "  people  that  walked  in  dai"kness  "  so  much 
later  as  the  times  of  Lsaiah,  and  it  is  scarcely  po.ssiblc  to 
imagine  that  they  could  have  felt  a  great  interest  in  the 
buildings  at  Jerusalem,  for  the  sake  of  which  they  were 
called  upon  to  join  the  band  of  labourers,  which  made  its 
way  every  month  through  their  country  to  Lebanon,  unless 
indeed  it  might  be  sweetened  by  pay  and  reward  as  is 
doubtful.  Yet  even  that  train,  travelling  in  its  detachments 
under  its  officers,  increa.sed  by  contributions  from  every  tribe, 
must  have  caused  a  thrill  of  life  and  mutual  acquaintance 
through  all  the  tribes  as  it  went  and  came,  with  its  new 
experiences,  so  much  to  tfell  of  Jerusalem  on  one  hand,  and 
of  the  mountains  on  the  other :  not  to  speak  of  the  wonders 
of  the  caravans  from  I'^gypt,  the  reports  of  the  shij)mcn  who 


144  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

went  SO  far  into  fabulous  lands  across  incredible  seas.  The 
country  folk  must  have  looked  for  the  passing  of  that  train 
with  all  the  excitement  of  rustics  to  whom  a  glimpse  into 
other  worlds  is  thus  afforded  periodically.  It  is  said  in  our 
own  days  that  nothing  has  so  welded  the  newly  formed 
kingdom  of  Italy  into  one,  as  the  military  service  which  carries 
the  Neapolitan  into  the  cities  of  the  north,  and  makes  the 
hardheaded  Piedmontese  acquainted  with  Rome  and  Sicily, 
revealing  on  all  sides,  to  the  astonishment  of  the  narrow  rustic 
or  narrower  citizen,  the  unity  of  a  great  country,  the  Patria 
which  is  something  greater  than  the  paese  to  which  all  his 
thoughts  have  been  limited.  These  journeys  to  Lebanon 
and  mutual  occupation  about  one  great  work  which  was  for 
the  glory  of  all  Israel  must,  one  would  imagine,  have  had  a 
similar  effect.  And  the  continual  passage  of  merchandise 
and  caravans  could  not  but  enrich  the  peasants  who  furnished 
food  for  man  and  beast  to  the  wandering  traders  and  their 
little  army  of  camels 'and  mules.  It  is  possible,  of  course, 
that  the  king's  lavish  expenditure  on  his  buildings  might 
excite  the  discontent,  especially  of  his  subjects  at  a  distance  : 
but  scarcely  credible  that  the  increased  movement  and  stir  of 
life  and  trade  should  not  have  benefited  all. 

Still  more  certain  advantage  must  have  been  in  the 
reconstruction  of  ancient  cities,  the  acquisition  of  new,  in  which 
colonies  of  Hebrews  could  be  placed,  and  the  boundaries  of 
their  sway  enlarged.  It  seems  very  doubtful  what  is  meant 
by  "  Tadmor  in  the  wilderness  " — which  has  been  generally 
taken  to  be  Palmyra,  far  away  among  the  wilds,  far  beyond 
Damascus,  which  for  a  great  part  of  Solomon's  reign  was 
unfriendly  to  him — unless  indeed  his  workmen  had  attained 
so  great  proficiency,  both  the  Tyrian  experts  and  their 
Hebrew  pupils,  that  they  were  sought  for  in  their  turn  as 
Hiram's  workmen  had  been  sought  for,  to  form  the  mighty 
columns  and  lay  the  prodigious  stones  of  these  wonderful 
temples  and  palaces.  It  is  now,  however,  considered  more 
probable  that  the  desert  on  the  other  side,  between  Egypt 
and  Judea,  is  the  wilderness  indicated.  But  the  narrative  is 
full  of  undertakings  nearer  home,  "  cities  of  stone,"  "  cities  for 


SOLOMON  145 


his  chariots  and  cities  for  his  horsemen,"  the  primitive  vague- 
ness of  description  revealing,  if  nothing  else,  a  universal 
activity  and  the  continual  addition  of  new  centres  of  occupa- 
tion and  life.  Still  more  wonderful  is  the  glimpse  into 
immensity  afforded  by  those  ships  which  Solomon  is  said  to 
have  built  on  the  shores  of  the  Red  Sea,  with  their  Tyrian 
captains  and  overseers  and  Hebrew  seamen,  sailing  away  into 
the  unknown,  a  long  uncertain  three  years'  voyage,  to  the 
mysterious  land  of  Ophir,  the  wonderful  ancient  Arabia  or 
India  whence  gold  and  precious  stones  and  sweet-smelling 
sandal-wood,  and,  perhaps,  some  rare  knowledge  of  inlaying 
and  fine  works  in  ivory  and  gold,  were  brought.  What  were 
the  exchanges  the  subtle  Hebrews,  with  their  natural  turn  for 
finance,  would  offer  ?  What  could  they  bring  that  was  not 
already  more  plentiful  in  a  world  so  overflowing  with 
primitive  wealth  ?  Perhaps  the  wool  and  woven  stuffs,  the 
embroideries  of  the  women  of  Israel,  the  carpets  and  cloths 
of  goat's  hair,  the  primitive  furnishings  of  the  tents.  The 
Venetians  in  their  day,  so  much  later,  exported  salt-fish 
and  wooden  bowls  and  spoons,  insignificant  articles  enough 
to  purchase  the  treasures  of  the  East,  but  yet  no  doubt 
answering  to  necessities  still  more  imperative  than  any 
need  of  luxury  could  be.  The  record  does  not  enter  into 
these  details.  The  voyages  themselves  are  wonder  enough, 
the  earliest  record  of  extended  trading  and  the  navigation  of 
the  unknown  seas.  And  even  the  briefness  of  the  statement 
adds  to  its  interest.  What  strange  novelty,  unknown  to  us, 
who  have  so  little  left  to  surprise  us,  what  excitement  must 
have  been  in  that  vague  blundering  about  those  brilliant  seas, 
what  tragic  experiences  of  cyclone  and  tempest,  what  loiter- 
ing in  strange  places,  waiting  upon  wind  and  weather,  in  the 
long,  long  wandering  of  those  three  years  ! 

Was  the  Queen  of  Sheba,  that  mysterious  and  legendary 
princess,  the  only  royal  visitor  that  came  in  her  time  out  of 
the  invisible  to  sec  the  great  king  whose  emissaries  had 
stirred  the  mists  that  veiled  one  part  of  the  world  from  the 
other  ?  She  is,  at  least,  the  only  one  that  makes  a  visible 
appearance   in   the   record,  with  her  offerings  and   her  great 

L 


146  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

train,  "  the  camels  that  bore  spices  and  very  much  gold  and 
precious  stones."  Over  what  deserts  had  she  come  to  see 
the  wonders  of  art  and  hear  the  words  of  wisdom  that  had 
reached  her  in  distant  echoes  so  far  away  :  or  was  she  one 
of  the  passengers  in  the  returning  ships,  taking  advantage  of 
those  wonderful  pioneers  in  the  unknown  seas  ?  This,  of 
course,  we  shall  never  know,  nor  who  the  lady  was  who 
showed  so  great  an  appreciation  of  wisdom,  nor  even  what 
was  the  foundation  of  fact  in  the  legend,  to  which  its  pictur- 
esqueness  gives  an  importance  which  it  scarcely  has  in  the 
record. 

How  was  it  that  this  petty  king,  lord  of  a  little  land,  no 
bigger  than  Wales,  filled  the  world  with  his  greatness  ?  How 
was  it  that  his  temple,  which  some  of  the  critics  of  the  present 
day  describe  as  a  small  edifice  {edicnle  M.  Renan  calls  it) 
not  much  more  than  a  royal  chapel,  should  remain  down  to 
these  times,  after  the  passage  of  nearly  three  thousand  years, 
in  the  imagination  and  memory  of  the  later  ages,  the  symbol 
of  everything  that  is  splendid  and  vast  in  architecture  and  in 
riches  ?  The  same  critics  tell  us  that  in  Solomon's  time 
there  was  a  rage  for  building  temples,  and  that  all  the  little 
nations  were  doing  it,  raising  sanctuaries  for  their  worship  far 
more  imposing  than  that  of  Solomon.  How  is  it  then  that 
all  of  these  have  crumbled  and  departed,  not  only  their 
ancient  walls — which  is  natural — but  all  memory  and  know- 
ledge of  them — while  still  the  Temple  on  Mount  Moriah 
shines,  where  it  stood  three  thousand  years  ago,  in  the 
recollection  of  men  ?  The  great  temples  of  Egypt  still 
stand  in  solemn  ruin,  which  were  far  more  vast  and 
more  splendid  still :  yet  we  have  but  the  faintest  under- 
standing of  them.  Neither  Tyre  nor  Sidon  nor  even 
Egypt  have  sustained  the  remorseless  destructions  that  have 
swept  over  the  holy  place  of  the  Jews  :  and  yet  they  are 
all  gone  into  uttermost  darkness,  while  the  other  remains 
triumphant  over  time  and  all  its  revenges.  .  The  vast  blocks 
of  stone  that  recent  excavators  have  laid  bare  fill  us  with  a 
wondering  awe  :  but  not  upon  them  is  founded  the  everlasting 
memory  which  makes  the  Temple  of  Solomon  as   real  to  us 


SOLOMON  147 


as  St.   Peter's   at   Rome,  or    our  own    minsters  and  abbeys 
which  our  eyes  have  seen.     The  temples  of  the  Greeks  are 
so  much  later  that  they  are  almost  modern  in  comparison, 
and  their  visible  and  splendid  ruins  are  still  wonderful  in  their 
decay  :  but  Solomon's  Temple  stands  only  in  recollection,  in  a 
history  which  has  been  a  hundred  times  rent  to  pieces,  and 
which  many  a  critic  has  fondly  believed   himself  to  have  dis- 
credited for  ever :  yet  it  stands  as  firm  as  when  it  was  built, 
a  thing  for  reverence   and  admiration  till  the  end  of  time. 
One  asks  one's  self  why  ?      And  hov/  is  it  that  the  heart  of 
the  nineteenth  century  sobs  forth  its  anguish  in  the  words  so 
called  of  David  and  breathes  over  all  earthly  ways  the  sigh 
which  bears  the  name  of  Solomon  ?     Those  to  whom  these 
potentates  of  the  ancient  ages  are  the  insignificant  and  half- 
fabulous   kings  of  an  obscure  people  must  answer  after  their 
fashion.    To  the  rest  of  us  the  explanation  is  sufficiently  clear. 
It    is   needless    to    touch  here  upon  the  immense  place 
which    Solomon   occupies   in    the   imagination  of   the  East, 
or    the    mass    of    stories    and    incidents,    many    no    doubt 
quite  fabulous,  which  have  collected  about  his  name.      That 
Mohammed    should     have     adopted    him     with     so     much 
fervour  and   faith   is    a  proof  of  his    legendary   importance 
among  the  peoples  which  were  not  his  own,  but  which  had 
been  already  pervaded   for  ages  by  the  reports  and  echoes 
of  his  wisdom  and  his  greatness.      But  we  may  with  more 
reason  add  to  the  brief  record  of  his  story  the  other  produc- 
tions, still    more   lasting  than    the  Temple,   which    bear  his 
name.      "  The    Song    of   songs,    which    is    Solomon's "   has 
been    represented  by  some  writers  as  a  popular  ballad  of  his 
time,  setting  forth  how  a  certain  beautiful  maiden  of  low 
degree  clung  to  the  shepherd  of  her  choice  and  scorned  the 
advances  of  the  king,  a  suggestion  so  completely  foreign   to 
the  character  of  the  poem,  in  any  natural  interpretation,  that 
we  leave   it   to   those  who  can    be   persuaded    into   such  a 
theory.     By  others  this  poem,  as  well  as  Ecclesiastes,  is  sup- 
posed to  be  the  production  of  some  anonymous  poet  of  a  much 
later  date,  who,  more  disinterested  than  modern  poets  are,  ex- 
tinguished himself  in  order  to  place  the  name  of  Solomon  on 


148  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  i>art  i 

his  work,  for  what  reason  it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine. 
It  would  have  been  as  easy  to  have  placed  the  name  of  the 
real  author  and  his  description  at  the  head  of  the  poem  as 
that  of  "  the  Preacher,  the  Son  of  David,"  and  more  gratify- 
ing to  natural  instinct,  which  never  since  has  reached  this 
height  of  self-abnegation.  Men  have  been  found  in  numbers 
to  give  their  lives  for  their  kings,  to  abandon  comfort,  and 
happiness,  and  wealth  for  their  sakes,  but  never  once  as  in 
this  case  to  give  up  to  them  the  dearer  fame  of  poem  or 
work  of  genius.  Such  a  piece  of  self-effacement  is  unknown 
to  any  other  language,  to  any  race  that  ever  existed.  No 
Greek  gave  the  credit  even  of  a  ballad  to  the  tyrant  of  his 
state,  or  cut  off  his  own  name  from  the  admiration  and 
knowledge  of  posterity  in  order  to  give  fictitious  glory  to 
his  master.  On  what  inducement  the  poets  of  Judea  in 
the  dawn  of  consciousness  should  have  done  so,  why  they  were 
so  far  different  (being  so  curiously  like  in  other  particulars 
the  most  tenacious  and  self-seeking  of  men)  from  all  other 
human  beings,  is  too  deep  a  question  for  the  ordinary  intelli- 
gence. We  prefer  to  receive  them,  as  at  least  from  the 
inspiration  of  Solomon,  whether  they  may  have  been  written 
out  or  not,  by  his  own  hand.  We  are  told  that  "  he  spake  " 
of  many  things  upon  which  his  utterances  have  perished  : 
beasts  and  birds,  and  trees  and  plants.  The  botany  and 
natural  history,  curious  as  they  would  have  been,  we  can  do 
without.      The  greater  treasure  has  been  preserved  for  us. 

The  Song  of  Solomon  has  never  had  fair  play,  if  we  may 
use  such  a  word  with  the  modern  reader.  Its  strange  mis- 
placement (according  to  all  nature  and  analogy)  in  the 
sacred  canon,  the  wonderful  efforts  that  have  been  made 
to  twist  its  fervent  strophes  into  a  spiritual  meaning,  and 
the  strain  of  everything  that  is  natural  and  seemly,  as  appears 
to  me,  in  the  effort,  has  given  a  false  character  to  the  poem 
from  which  it  is  difficult  to  disengage  the  imagination. 
This,  I  am  aware,  is  a  very  bold  thing  for  the  unlearned  to 
say,  and  I  venture  to  say  it  only  as  one  of  the  unlearned, 
and  according  to  mere  literary  instinct,  no  more.  When  we 
treat  it  frankly  as  what  it  is,  "  a  song  of  loves,"  it  becomes 


SOLOMON  149 


one  of  the  most  interesting  relics  of  literature,  the  oldest  of 
love-songs,  a  little  cantata,  half  lyrical,  half  dramatic,  of  the 
happy  meetings,  the  temporary  estrangements,  the  mutual 
adoration  of  the  youthful  pair,  more  beautiful  to  each  other 
than  anything  else  on  earth,  and  eager  to  prove  to  the  world 
around  each,  the  superlative  attraction  of  his  or  her  choice. 
The  slight  setting  of  the  contemporary  life  by  which  the 
lovers  are  surrounded,  is  clear  as  a  picture.  There  are  the 
streets,  the  watchmen  that  go  about  the  city,  the  keepers  of 
the  walls,  the  silence  of  the  night  into  which  the  lady  strays 
who  has  lost  her  love  ;  there  is  the  spring  awaking  over  all 
the  fields,  the  call  of  the  lover  to  his  love  to  come  forth,  like 
Corinna  to  the  maying.  "  The  flowers  appear  ;  the  time  of 
the  singing  of  birds  has  come,  the  voice  of  the  dove  is  heard 
in  the  land."  There  is  the  beloved  at  the  window  seeking 
entrance,  going  "  down  "  to  his  garden,  to  the  beds  of  .spices, 
to  the  gardens  of  nuts,  to  see  the  fruits  of  the  valley,  and 
the  budding  of  the  pomegranates,  to  gather  lilies  ;  or  he 
comes  swift  in  his  ardour  over  the  mountains  like  a  roe  or 
a  young  hart,  or  out  of  the  wilderness  "  like  pillars  of 
smoke,"  clouds  of  dust  rising  round  the  swiftness  of  his 
coming.  Whether  it  was  the  daughter  of  Pharaoh  who 
describes  herself  as  "  black  but  comely "  while  her  lover 
lavishes  upon  her  every  adoring  attribute,  or  whether  the 
Shulamite  was  one  of  the  many  other  loves  with  which  the 
king  surrounded  himself,  who  can  tell  ?  Who  indeed  can 
tell  anything  certain  about  this  earliest  of  love-songs  ?  Its 
broken  canticles,  its  hyberbolc  of  Eastern  detail,  its  love- 
longing  and  wistfulness  of  pursuit,  the  constant  eluding  of 
the  supreme  meeting  which  is  the  very  soul  of  the  love- 
song,  are  perfect  in  their  Oriental  expression.  And  so  are 
the  exquisite  little  vignettes  of  description,  the  glimpses  of 
the  world  around,  which  are  so  much  le.ss  important  to  the 
singer  than  are  the  charms  of  his  love,  his  fair  one,  the 
fairest  among  women — or  to  her  than  the  beloved  who  is 
far  more  than  any  other  beloved — 

How  shall  I  your  true  love  ken 
From  another  one  ? 


I50  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  I 

The  sentiment  is  universal  and  runs  through  all  the  ages.  He 
is  the  chiefest  among  ten  thousand  :  and  of  her  she  is  but 
one,  the  choice  one  of  her  mother :  "  there  is  none  like  her, 
none."  Sometimes  she  is  even  terrible  in  her  beauty  "  like 
an  army  with  banners  "  to  the  adoring  lover.  The  Jerusalem 
that  comes  vaguely  into  sight  behind  these  two  beautiful 
figures  is  settled  and  orderly,  the  slopes  of  its  hills  covered 
with  gardens,  its  inner  economy  safe  and  sure : — beyond  its 
walls,  stretching  out  in  the  valleys,  lie  pleasant  fields  full  of 
vines  and  pomegranates  and  apple-trees  :  the  rural  paths  are 
sweet  with  flowers,  lilies  above  all,  of  which  it  was  said  a  thou- 
sand years  after,  that  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed 
like  one  of  these:  a  delightful  link  of  association  between 
that  far-distant  scene  and  the  past,  less  remote,  which  is  so 
much  more  momentous  and  dear.  The  great  singer  who 
made  the  song  may  not  have  been  Solomon,  it  may  have 
been  out  of  pure  loyalty  to  enhance  his  monarch's  name  that 
he  allowed  it  to  Jdc  attributed  to  Solomon  ;  or  there  may  be 
collected  in  it,  strung  upon  the  exquisite  thread  of  its  little 
drama,  other  utterances  of  primitive  song  in  celebration  of 
other  beloveds.  But  it  is  full  of  unity  from  beginning  to  end. 
Its  passion  is  legitimate  and  chastened,  not  hot  with  anxiety 
or  any  suggestion  of  the  clandestine.  It  is  a  song  of 
espousals,  of  love  with  no  darker  shadow  in  it  than  the  pass- 
ing clouds,  the  little  evasions,  the  keen  momentary  pang  of  a 
meeting  missed  or  a  visit  lost. 

Ecclesiastes  is  a  poem  of  a  very  different  strain  :  yet  there 
is  no  discord  between  the  two,  nothing  in  one,  though  it  is 
the  antipodes  of  the  other,  which  could  make  us  feel  it  incom- 
patible that  the  author  should  be  the  same.  On  the  con- 
trary, that  grave  and  musing  philosopher  who  stands  on  the 
eminence  of  maturity  and  experience,  has  by  his  own  showing 
sought  with  ardour  all  the  triumphs  and  pleasures  of  life,  and 
tasted  every  joy,  and  fathomed  every  sweetness.  Such  a 
man  of  all  others  is  most  like  to  have  expanded  himself  at 
once  in  the  refinements  and  the  ardours  of  sentiment,  and 
could  scarcely  have  fallen  into  the  monotonous  garbage  of  so- 
called   passion  during  that  youth  of  genius  and   high  aspira- 


SOLOMON  151 


tion  "  feeding  among  the  lilies "  which  was  capable  of  so 
much  finer  things.  He  had  now  seen  the  emptiness  of 
all.  Romance  had  died  out  from  him  :  his  Shulamite  had 
become  like  other  women,  his  Egyptian  princess  a  fellow- 
creature  moved  with  like  passions  as  himself  In  all  the 
other  pursuits  of  earth,  having  failed  in  this,  he  had  sought 
that  supreme  satisfaction  which  his  heart  had  dreamed— and 
found  it  nowhere.  Not  in  wisdom,  nor  in  pleasure,  nor  in 
ambition,  acquisition,  any  of  those  great  things  that  excite 
the  wishes  of  men.  His  great  public  works,  his  agriculture, 
his  provisions  of  water  for  a  thirsty  land,  those  prodigious 
reservoirs  which  still  bear  his  name,  his  wonderful  buildings, 
his  luxuries,  his  pleasures  "  the  delights  of  the  sons  of  men," 
music  in  all  its  kinds,  everything  that  was  beautiful,  had  failed 
like  the  rest.  They  occupied  him  but  satisfied  him  not. 
As  soon  as  an  undertaking  was  accompH.shed,  he  found  it 
to  be  vanity  :  it  was  neither  so  great  as  he  had  intended  it  to 
be,  nor  did  it  produce  the  result  he  sought.  Even  in  wisdom 
and  knowledge  the  end  was  the  same :  even  justice  and 
equity  failed  to  satisfy  his  soul  ;  for  who  could  tell  how  soon 
these  wise  decisions  should  be  reversed,  these  able  measures 
overturned  by  the  folly  of  the  man  who  should  come  after 
him,  a  sad  but  certain  prevision  which  after  events  so  con- 
clusively proved  ? 

This  last  bitter  thread  of  disappointment,  the  most 
penetrating  of  all  sad  thoughts,  the  profoundest,  perhaps, 
of  human  griefs,  runs  through  all  his  great  and  melancholy 
musings,  the  same  dread  disappointment  which  had  pro- 
duced so  much  anguish  to  David.  Yet  David's  had  been 
different,  more  violent,  less  like  the  canker  that  eats  into 
the  life.  Solomon  was  not  a  man  to  fight  against  a  con- 
clusion like  the  hotter  human  heart  of  his  poet  father  ;  nor 
was  his  son  a  warlike,  ambitious  Absalom,  which  might 
jjerhaps  have  been  borne — as  we  think  always  of  the  griefs 
that  are  not  our  own.  What  an  end  was  that  to  all  his 
plans,  his  manifold  designs  and  imaginations,  the  greatness 
which  had  spread  through  the  world,  that  he  should  be 
succeeded   by  a  fool !       We  do   not  know  nor  does  he  tell 


152  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

US   the  preliminary  steps  which   brought  him  to  that  convic- 
tion, nor  how,  after    the   first  almost   equally  discomposing 
thought  that  he  knew  not  who   should   come  after  him,  the 
succession    out    of  his    host    of  children    should    have    been 
changed   and   his   choice   narrowed  down   to   Rehoboam,  the 
son   of    a    mother    quite    undistinguished,   an    Ammonite,   a 
heathen  woman,  one  of  those  for  whom  the  too  tolerant  king, 
— perhaps  thinking  lightly  in   his  wisdom  of  the  distinction 
of  names,  and  with  a  conviction  in   his  great  soul  that  every 
god  to  whom   offerings  were   made  was  but  an   adumbration 
to  the  ignorant  of  the  one  God  that  filled  heaven  and  earth — 
had  created  a  place  of  worship  upon  Olivet.      Had  he  speci- 
ally bound  himself  in  the  heat  of  passion  to  this  woman  that 
her  son  should  be  his  successor?  or  had  the  unhappy  choice 
been  forced  upon  him  by  some  untold  calamity,  some  depth 
of  personal  disappointment  or  sorrow,  the  absence  of  other 
progeny,  so  unlikely  in  such  a  case,  or  the  inroads  of  death  ? 
This    can    never    be    known    to    us :     but  it  is  curious 
that  while    two  daughters  of    Solomon    are    mentioned    in 
the   record  there  is  not  a  word  of  any  other  son  :    a  silence 
which  of  itself  is  full  of  suggestion,  and  seems  to  indicate  a 
still   more    profound   depth    of  sorrow  or  destitution   below. 
Whether  there  had  never  been  any  others,  whether  they  had 
been  swept  out  of  his  house  by  calamity,  here  he  remains  in 
the  end  of  his  life,  a  wise  man   conscious  that  his  successor 
will  be  a  fool.      What  were  all  his  labours  worth  in  sight  of 
that  listless  or  frivolous  boy,  who  was  the  heir  of  all  ?  perhaps 
beloved   as  Absalom  was,  but  concerning  whom  his  father's 
melancholy  insight  prevented  all  illusion.    This  also  was  vanity, 
the  most  bitter  of  all.      It  is  the  keynote  of  the  sorrowful 
strain  which  is  full  of  the  composure  of  despair.      The  great 
stillness    of  these   musings    is   broken   at   the    end    with   an 
impassioned  appeal  to  the  young  man  rejoicing  in  his  youth, 
with  which,  perhaps,  in   the  pathos  of  human   weakness  he 
might  have  hoped  to  reach  that  careless  heart.      Perhaps  the 
shout  of  the  revellers  came  borne  upon   the  evening  breeze 
to  the  ear  of  the  philosopher  as  he  sat  musing  over  all  those 
great  achievements,  pursued  and  carried  out  with  such  ardour 


SOLOMON  155 


and  delight  which  now  began  to  appear  to  him  like  the 
wrecks  of  life — who  can  tell  ?  That,  too,  was  vanity,  the  last, 
the  most  bitter,  the  most  hopeless  of  all. 

There  is,  however,  something  besides,  another  element 
to  modify  this  refrain  which  has  been  caught  up  all  over 
the  world  and  through  all  the  ages,  and  is,  in  one  sense, 
the  unalterable  verdict  of  humanity  upon  itself.  There  is 
and  always  will  be  a  revulsion  of  the  soul  in  resistance  to 
so  dreadful  a  conclusion  :  as  well  as  also  an  indignant  resist- 
ance to  that  still  more  dreadful  sense  of  the  nullifying  and, 
as  it  were,  annihilation  of  all  the  results  ot  a  great  man's 
life,  and  even  of  his  individuality,  which  is  involved  in  the 
sweeping  downfall  of  every  trace  and  effect  of  him,  brought 
about  by  the  folly  of  another.  The  heart  rises  against  this 
profound  injustice,  the  heaviest  doom  of  nature  and  the  one 
which  can  be  least  guarded  against.  But  it  seems  to  me 
that  in  no  production  of  human  genius  is  the  alternation  of 
two  different  aspects  of  life  so  well  set  forth  as  in  this  great 
poem,  which  has  been  taken  by  the  world  only  as  the  dread 
proclamation  of  one  burden.  Solomon,  however,  does  not 
insist  more  strongly  upon  that  conclusion  of  all  mortal  things 
that  "  this  is  vanity,"  than  he  does  upon  the  individual 
balance  to  it  which  we  so  often  lose  sight  of  and  continually 
ignore,  the  great  compensation  of  the  labourer  whose  work 
.so  often  must  come  to  nought.  "  There  is  no  good  but  for 
a  man  to  rejoice,  and  do  good.  And  also  that  every  man 
should  eat  and  drink  and  enjoy  the  good  of  all  his  labour." 
"It  is  good  and  comely  ...  to  enjoy  the  good  of  all  the 
labour  that  he  taketh  under  the  sun  .  .  .  and  to  take  his 
portion  and  rejoice  in  his  labour  .  .  .  because  God 
answereth  him  in  the  joy  of  his  heart."  This  is  not  the 
doctrine  of  the  Epicurean  though  it  may  seem  so  to  a  super- 
ficial glance.  It  is  the  deep  conviction  of  the  sorrowful  man 
who  has  had  everything,  and  possesses  all,  and  knows  that 
everything  he  pos.scsses  is  slipping  from  his  grasp.  He  has 
laboured  above  the  power  of  ordinary  men,  looking  con- 
tinually for  .some  supreme  result.  He  has  embarked  ujK)n 
great   undertakings    and    pushed    them   on   with   ardour   to 


156  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VW  parti 

their  end,  with  the  swift  concentration  of  every  faculty  upon 
them,  with  the  ever-renewed  and  ever-failing  hope  that  in 
that  end  will  be  the  satisfaction,  the  sublime  content,  the 
rest  from  his  labours,  which  every  man  desires.  He  has 
added  city  to  city,  and  land  to  land,  he  has  built  temple 
and  palace  :— and  these  being  not  enough  has  added  ever 
and  ever  some  new  thing,  the  house  of  the  forest  of  Lebanon 
on  its  fragrant  thicket  of  pillars,  and  Gezer  and  Beth-horon 
with  their  new  colonies,  and  the  storehouses,  and  the  stables 
and  a  hundred  things  besides  : — but  all  the  while  in  the 
folly  of  his  wisdom— for  is  not  he,  too,  the  wise  man  himself, 
in  this  a  fool  ? — has  not  perceived  till  now  that  the  work  and 
labour  were  the  joy,  and  not  the  always  imperfect,  never 
accomplished  end.  To  rejoice  in  his  labour  because  God 
answcreth  him  in  the  joy  of  his  heart !  Here  is  the  one 
thing  that  is  not  vanity.  It  is  in  the  happiness  of  making, 
of  producing,  of  exercising  the  faculties  that  God  has 
given,  of  conceiving  in  his  heart  and  working  out  with  his 
hands  the  work  which  he  loves.  A  smile  comes  even  upon 
that  sorrowful  face  at  the  thought  of  the  working  days,  the 
peaceful  evening  of  rest,  the  awaking  to  all  the  joys  of  active 
life.  No  more  beautiful  picture  of  the  cheerful  tenor  of  the 
common  life,  the  modest  man  among  his  fields,  the  workman 
at  his  work,  was  ever  made  than  that  which  comes  from  the 
lips  of  this  dark  and  sad  philosopher  upon  the  desolate 
heights  of  being,  warning  the  world  that  all  is  vanity.  Yes. 
Vanity  of  vanities,  saith  the  Preacher.      But  yet — 

Go  thy  way,  eat  thy  bread  with  joy,  and  drink  thy  wine  with  a  merry 
heart ;  for  God  now  accepteth  thy  works. 

Let  thy  garments  be  always  white  ;  and  let  thy  head  lack  no 
ointment. 

Live  joyfully  with  the  wife  whom  thou  lovest  all  the  days  of  the  life 
of  thy  vanity,  which  He  hath  given  thee  under  the  sun  :  for  that  is 
thy  portion  in  this  life,  and  in  thy  labour  which  thou  takest  under 
the  sun. 

Whatsoever  thy  hand  findeth  to  do,  do  it  with  thy  might. 

"  To  rejoice  in  his  labour  :  this  is  the  gift  of  God."      So 
speaks    the  philosopher,  the    first    great    pessimist,   who    has 


SOLOMON  157 


had  this  gift  above  most  men,  and  thought  little  of  it  accord- 
ing to  the  ways  of  man,  always  hurrying  forward  to  a  result 
which,  when  attained,  was  not  what  he  sought :  but  who 
looking  back  sees  clearly  what  that  gift  was,  and  the  unthought- 
of  happiness  that  has  been.  David  amid  all  his  store  of 
preparations,  his  designs  for  the  house  of  God  which  he  was 
not  allowed  to  build,  his  patterns,  his  laying  up  of  this  and  that 
for  the  work,  was  more  happy  than  he  who  accomplished 
everything.  But  yet  Solomon  would  not  have  had  this 
revelation  had  not  he,  too,  recollections  of  the  fulness  of  his 
career,  when  he  worked  with  all  his  might  at  whatsoever  his 
hand  found  to  do,  and  rejoiced  in  his  labour,  and  found  every 
day  too  short  for  the  work  that  filled  it.  How  little  he  had 
thought  of  that  in  his  eager  pressing  towards  the  end, 
towards  the  result !  Yet  it  was  his  portion  :  the  result  was 
not  for  him  but  for  the  world. 

There  was  a  preacher  of  our  own  day,  scarcely  faded 
yet  into  obscurity,  who  once  made  a  strange  sermon  upon 
not  only  the  fallacy  of  the  hopes  of  men,  which  is  a  thread- 
bare subject,  but  upon  what  he  almost  ventured  to  call  the 
fallacy  of  the  promises  of  God.  He  had  no  profane  or 
irreverent  meaning :  but  the  burden  of  his  teaching  was  that 
God  drew  men  on  with  delusive  promises  in  order  to  lure 
them  to  the  better  country  in  which  all  these  promises  were 
to  come  true.  He  showed  how  Abraham  had  the  promise 
of  the  land  in  which  he  dwelt  but  never  possessed  more  of 
it  than  sufficed  for  his  grave,  and  so  with  all  the  patriarchs. 
How  David  was  promised  an  established  reign  and  throne, 
and  yet  his  kingdom  was  broken  up  in  the  second  generation  ; 
and  how  the  supreme  Disposer  of  events,  like  the  classic 
Fates,  "  kept  the  word  of  promise  to  the  ear,  and  broke  it  to 
the  heart."  Mr.  Robertson,  of  lirighton,  was  himself  a  man 
of  many  disappointments,  and  it  gave,  no  doubt,  a  certain 
balm  to  his  wounds  to  see  how  that  bitter  strain  ran  through 
all  careers  and  anticipations  of  men.  But  yet  I  think  that 
teaching  of  his  was  far  inferior  to  the  teaching  of  the 
acknowledged  preacher  of  disappointment,  the  philosopher 
whose    burden    it    is,    proclaimed    and    assented    to    through 


IS8  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D  part  i 

every  age  of  human  history,  that  all  is  vanity.  Clear  as 
daylight  in  one  reiteration  after  another  he  proclaims  this 
one  thing  that  is  not  vanity :  that  a  man  should  take 
pleasure  in  the  doing  of  his  work  :  that  he  should  rejoice  in 
his  labour,  that  this  is  his  portion  and  the  gift  of  God,  and 
that  God  answereth  him  in  the  joy  of  his  heart.  From  the 
highest  artist  down  to  the  ploughman,  the  straightness  of 
whose  honest  furrow  is  the  delight  of  his  life :  from  the 
monarch — let  us  take  a  familiar  example,  the  Queen  of  our 
own  days,  who  if  ever  man  or  woman  might,  could  rejoice 
in  the  results  of  her  reign — yet  who  takes  pride  and  pleasure 
in  her  labour,  most  of  all,  and  daily  toil — to  the  seamstress 
who  sets  forth  overnight  the  work  she  is  doing,  her  little 
creations  of  ribbon  and  muslin,  to  inspire  her  when  she 
wakes,  and  rises  with  eagerness  to  continue.  "  For  it  is  his 
portion  :  this  is  the  gift  of  God  :  because  God  answereth 
him  in  the  joy  of  his  heart." 

The  reader  will  note  what  a  magnificent  pendant  to  the 
Jerusalem  of  the  "  Song,"  embowered  in  its  gardens,  with  the 
watchmen  upon  the  walls,  and  the  silence  of  the  safe  and 
slumbering  night  guarded  by  the  keepers  of  the  city,  comes 
in  the  end  of  this  later  poem,  the  conclusion  of  the  tragedy 
which  was  so  fair  and  beautiful,  a  romance  in  its  beginning  : 
when  "  those  that  look  out  of  the  windows  are  darkened,  and 
the  doors  are  shut,  and  the  daughters  of  music  brought  low," 
when  the  bridegroom  who  once  came  over  the  mountains,  in 
the  haste  of  his  coming,  like  pillars  of  smoke,  "  is  afraid  of 
that  which  is  high,  and  fears  every  stone  in  the  way."  When 
to  him  who  fed  among  the  lilies,  the  featherweight  as  of  a 
grasshopper  becomes  a  burden,  and  to  him  who  was  so  full  of 
life  and  love  of  life,  even  desire  fails — "  because  man  goeth  to 
his  long  home,  and  the  mourners  go  about  the  streets."  He 
who  traversed  the  city  in  those  hours  of  youthful  joy  and 
knocked  at  the  window  of  his  love,  and  played  the  pretty 
drama  of  evasion  to  draw  her  after  him — now  looks  down  from 
his  palace  roof,  and  sees  in  imagination  the  last  scene,  so 
soon  to  come,  the  mourners  rending  their  garments,  passing 
about  the  shadowed   ways  with  bent  heads,  and  dust  upon 


SOLOMON  159 


their  foreheads.  The  one  is  as  clear  to  him  as  the  other  in 
the  light  of  sombre  anticipation,  as  in  that  of  the  voluptuous 
moon,  the  evening  light  of  memory.  His  life  is  complete 
with  all  its  ambitions  between  these  two  scenes,  his  lilies  no 
longer  sweet  to  him,  his  burial  cave  open  and  ready  beside 
his  father  David,  the  work  of  whose  life,  like  his  own,  is  to 
be  scattered  to  the  winds  by  that  careless  youth  and  his 
boyish  counsellors  who  are  holding  their  revels  close  by. 
Vanity  of  vanities,  all  is  vanity.  Yet  Solomon,  too,  had  had 
his  portion — the  gift  of  God. 

Solomon,  however,  great  as  he  was,  was  not  all  great. 
The  morality  of  that  early  age  was  all  unsettled  and  un- 
assured. In  respect  to  the  sexes  no  utterance  had  been  made, 
nor  was  ever  made  by  authoritative  command — a  strange 
thing  to  think  of,  but  a  true.  The  best  of  men  had  a 
plurality  of  wives,  and  the  number  was  but  a  detail,  the 
principle  being  thus  granted.  David  celebrated  his  entrance 
into  Jerusalem  by  adding  a  number  of  women  to  his 
harem.  Solomon  according  to  the  record  went  far  beyond 
even  that  indulgence.  He  "  loved  many  strange  women, 
together  with  "  or  in  addition  to  "  the  daughter  of  Pharaoh." 
The  mother  of  his  son  Rehoboam  was  an  Ammonite. 
Probably  something  of  the  same  kind  of  research,  which  was 
afterwards  carried  into  effect  for  king  Ahasuerus,  the  col- 
lection of  all  the  most  beautiful  women  of  the  time  wherever 
they  were  to  be  found,  was  made  for  the  delectation  of 
Solomon,  connoisseur  as  he  was  in  every  kind  of  beauty. 
From  Moab,  from  Ammon,  from  Sidon,  the  daughters  of 
kings,  the  most  accomplished  and  perfect  of  the  maidens  of 
all  the  surrounding  nations,  would  be  brought  up  for  his 
choice,  the  most  delicate  homage  that  could  be  rendered  to 
the  potentate.  Did  the  proud  race  of  Judah,  the  no  less 
proud  and  independent  tribes  of  Israel,  his  own  people,  revolt 
against  such  a  tribute,  one  wonders,  and  object  to  render  up 
the  flower  of  their  households  to  the  caprice  of  the  king  ? 
Such  a  conjecture  at  least  may  be  permitted,  in  view  of  the 
constant  succession  of  strange  nationalities  in  the  list  of  royal 
marriages.      Perhaps  in   the  busy    life  of  such   a   man,    the 


i6o  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  parti 

fair  new  face,  the  piquancy  of  such  varied  manners  as  might 
be  possible  among  nations  between  which  so  Httle  real 
difference  of  race  existed,  gave  a  diversion  not  forbidden  to 
the  many  occupations  and  thoughts  with  which  his  mind  was 
full.  To  imagine  that  these  surroundings  made  Solomon 
into  a  mere  voluptuary,  above  all  into  that  most  odious  of 
characters  a  feeble  and  senile  libertine,  is  quite  uncalled  for. 
It  is  not  this  which  brings  censure  upon  his  head,  but  the  fact 
that  the  princesses  and  slaves  of  his  household  were  "  strange 
women,"  foreigners,  each  bringing  with  her  some  foreign 
worship.  The  critics  tell  us  that  it  was  the  jealousy  of  the 
priests,  the  pettiness  of  local  prejudice,  which  made  this 
bringing  in  of  "  strange  women "  a  thing  so  continually 
denounced  in  Israel.  But  no  reasonable  judgment  can  fail 
to  see  how  fatal  the  force  of  such  an  influence  must  have  been 
upon  the  religious  principles  of  the  people.  Rome,  the  wisest 
of  human  corporations,  has  found  it  necessary  in  our  advanced 
times  to  take  the  strongest  steps  against  this  danger,  well 
foreseeing  not  only  the  risk  of  anything  like  justice  in  the 
matter,  of  yielding  up  half  of  the  children  to  the  training  of  a 
Protestant  mother — but  also  the  inevitable  slackening  of  all 
bonds,  even  when  this  is  prevented. 

It  was  more  fatal  still  when  the  antagonism  t  was 
between  a  national  system  struggling  to  keep  intact  the 
worship  of  one  God,  and  the  idolatries  that  seem  to  have  had 
at  all  times  so  many  attractions  for  light  and  unwary  spirits. 
The  Jewish  priests  and  conservators  were  like  those  re- 
formers who  looked  on  with  angry  and  jealous  eyes  at  the 
royal  chapel  in  which  the  foreign  queen  had  to  be  permitted 
to  hear  her  mass,  whatever  reasons  there  might  be  against  it. 
The  reasons  were  infinitely  stronger  on  the  side  of  the  Jews. 
But  with  Solomon,  who  probably  looked  on  all  those  clinging 
dependants  round  him  with  a  certain  contempt  as  far  too 
slight  creatures  to  affect  any  man  except  for  the  fleeting 
moment  of  their  beauty  and  empire  over  his  senses — it  is  not 
difficult  to  understand  the  facility  with  which  he  might  be 
persuaded  to  provide  for  each  her  means  of  religious  comfort 
or  distraction,  her  grove  on   Olivet,  her  cherished  idol  :   nay. 


SOLOMON  i6i 


that  he  should  have  been  led  by  one  soft  persuasion  after 
another  to  go  with  the  queen  of  the  moment  and  witness  her 
rites,  he  whose  desire — perhaps  whose  weakness — it  was  to 
approfondir  everything,  to  know  what  was  meant  in  every 
vagary  of  human  fancy,  in  every  development  of  human 
thought.  What  he  did  from  such  a  motive,  with  the  smile 
upon  his  grave  lip  to  see  how  far  the  folly  and  the  wisdom  of 
mankind,  its  superstition  and  dim  apprehension  of  the  super- 
natural would  go  :  or  dragged  by  some  winning  favourite  to 
satisfy  her  love  or  her  pride  by  the  triumph  of  his  companion- 
ship :  would  be  of  the  most  fatal  example  for  the  lighter 
beings  who  were  drawn  along  in  his  train,  and  who,  perhaps, 
believed  it  would  please  the  king  if  they  followed  these  gods 
of  the  women  :  and  still  more  for  the  ignorant  and  gaping 
crowd  for  whom  there  were  always  so  many  attractions  in 
those  mysteries  of  the  groves  and  high  places.  Queen  Mary's 
mass  in  Holyrood  was  no  such  danger  even  for  the  courtiers 
who  surrounded  her,  yet  we  know  how  fiercely  that  was 
resisted,  with  what  denunciations, — Astartc  herself  meaning 
nothing  more  terrible  even  to  the  most  reasonable  of  that 
time. 

This  is  the  shadow  that  fell  upon  Solomon's  great  career. 
Perhaps  also  he  fell  into  the  abyss  of  luxurious  self-indul- 
gence which  is  the  great  temptation  of  Oriental  life,  in  his 
later  years  ;  or  at  least  so  retired  himself — having  done  all 
and  organised  all  and  set  the  machine  of  government  in  full 
operation — within  the  seclusion  of  royal  solitude,  as  might 
make  it  appear  that  he  had  thus  fallen.  And  yet  it  is  im- 
possible to  associate  with  his  name  any  such  anti- climax 
of  sensual  decadence.  The  still  despair  of  that  conclusion 
to  which  in  his  heart  he  had  come,  the  conviction  that  a 
man  may  do  all,  realise  all,  achieve  all  that  his  fancy  can 
conceive,  yet  remain  for  ever  unsatisfied,  achieving  nothing 
perfectly,  incapable  at  his  best  of  turning  his  ideal  into 
reality  or  accomplishing  what  he  would :  the  still  more 
profound  disenchantment  with  which  all  his  early  dreams 
of  human  nobleness  fell  back  upon  his  heart,  leaving  nothing 
better  than  the  possibility  that  one  man  among  ten  thousand 

M 


i62  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  parti 

might  be  found  that  was  true,  but  among  women,  not  so 
much  as  one — no  doubt  turned  him  away  in  a  growing 
distaste  for  the  company  of  flatterers  and  deceivers,  to  his 
forlorn  isolation  of  kinghood  and  greatness.  And  who  can 
tell  what  private  disappointments  made  his  great  heart  sick  ? 
Had  he  no  son  but  Rehoboam  ?  had  some  curse  of  barren- 
ness fallen  on  his  house,  or  some  plague  ravaged  the  chambers 
of  the  children  ?  was  there  but  one,  and  he  a  fool,  O  last 
and  most  overwhelming  of  disappointments  !  to  inherit  the 
name  of  the  great  Solomon  and  carry  on  his  mighty  works, 
his  splendour  and  his  power  ? 

All  this  is  lost  in  the  mists  of  a  distance  which  no  eye 
can  penetrate  ;  the  wonderful  thing  is  that  we  should  know 
so  much  of  him,  behold  him  thus  in  his  palace  and  his  re- 
tirement, the  most  ambitious,  the  most  energetic,  the  most 
aspiring,  the  most  deeply  disappointed  of  all  men  :  hurrying 
through  a  thousand  labours,  organising  every  kind  of  enter- 
prise, pressing  the  very  progress  of  the  world  to  forestall  the 
times  and  satisfy  his  soul  :  setting  out  like  a  bridegroom  to 
run  his  race  in  all  the  glory  and  joy  of  youth  :  standing  at 
the  end  upon  his  high  tower  of  contemplation  to  deliver  the 
judgment  of  humanity  upon  itself  He  is  no  primitive  hero, 
no  product  of  the  primeval  imagination.  Such  an  image 
belongs,  we  should  say,  to  the  very  climax  of  civilisation,  to 
the  most  accomplished  and  exhausted  age,  when  all  has  been 
done  that  man  can  do.  The  mind  of  Solomon  bears  a  far 
deeper  moral  and  consciousness  than  that  of  Alexander  :  the 
one  longing  for  more  worlds  to  subdue,  the  other  gravely 
smiling  upon  a  universe  of  which  he  has  tasted  all  the 
sensations,  •  acknowledging  that  were  there  yet  a  thousand 
worlds  before  him,  there  would  be  in  all  but  the  repetition 
of  a  failing  experiment,  a  continually  renewed  dissatisfaction, 
a  dream  always  pursued  but  never  realised. 

But  still  more  wonderful,  more  extraordinarily  advanced 
in  progress  and  experience,  is  the  conviction  with  which  every 
proclamation  of  his  disappointment  is  accompanied  :  that  it 
is  in  the  doing  of  the  work,  and  not  in  the  end  and  result 
of  it,  that  the  happiness  of  existence   lies.      So  cheerful,  so 


SOLOMON  163 


merciful,  so  consoling  an  utterance  is  not  what  we  have  been 
taught  to  look  for  from  Solomon  :  yet  there  it  is,  pervading 
the  gray  twilight  of  that  ending  life  with  the  reflections  of 
a  glowing  manhood  :  that  a  man  should  "  rejoice  and  do 
good  in  his  life,"  that  he  should  "  enjoy  the  good  of  his 
labour,"  "  for  it  is  his  portion  " — that  he  should  "  rejoice  in 
his  labour :  for  this  is  the  gift  of  God,"  "  because  God 
answereth  him  in  the  joy  of  his  heart "  !  The  other,  the 
darker  sentence  that  "  all  is  vanity "  has  been  adopted  by 
acclaim,  a  conclusion  in  which  he  has  simply  forestalled 
every  generation  of  his  successors,  and  all  the  wise  men 
who  have  followed  him.  But  this,  too,  is  the  burden  of 
Solomon,  not  less  emphatic  : — that  the  joy  of  life  is  in  the 
doing  :  that  the  gift  of  God  is  that  satisfaction  which  lies 
in  a  man's  work  and  the  exercise  of  his  faculties  :  that  he 
who  does  with  all  his  might  what  his  hand  finds  to  do,  is 
the  happy  man.  The  sage  and  the  fool,  alike,  hurry  over 
that  wholesome  happiness  of  the  daily  round,  despising  it, 
looking  for  something  better,  for  some  pitiful  result,  some 
poor  achievement  which  is  to  make  them  demigods  among 
men.  And  this  is  vanity,  vanity  of  vanities.  But  to  rejoice 
in  his  labour  is  not  vain  :  it  is  the  portion  of  man  :  it  is  the 
gift  of  God.      God  answereth  him  in  the  joy  of  his  heart. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    KINGS    OF    JUDAII 

There  could  be  no  more  tremendous  comment  upon  that 
conclusion  of  Solomon's  philosophy  than  the  history  of 
his  own  house  and  kingdom.  The  life  of  this  great  prince 
was  wholly  occupied  in  building  up  and  assuring  the 
monarchy  which  his  father  had  founded.  He  had  entered 
upon  an  inheritance  full  of  embarrassment  and  care,  with  an 
elder  brother  in  semi-rebellion,  and  the  great  chief  of  his 
army,  the  head  of  all  warlike  enterprise  in  Israel,  opposed  to 
him — while  himself  still  young,  untried,  upon  the  top  of  that 
wave  of  fickle  popular  enthusiasm  upon  which  no  one  can 
calculate  for  more  than  a  moment.  He  had  upon  his 
shoulders  as  his  chief  charge,  his  raison  d'etre,  so  to  speak, 
the  building  of  that  great  Temple  which,  no  doubt,  was  to 
many  a  devout  imagination,  and  of  which,  perhaps,  very  few 
foresaw  the  future  importance  as  the  one  centre  and  rallying 
ground  for  the  national  spirit  and  heart.  Solomon  had 
before  him  the  tremendous  task  not  only  of  building  that 
Temple,  but  of  making  it  accepted  of  the  people — the  distant 
tribes  who  acknowledged  his  sway,  but  knew  nothing  of  his 
Jerusalem,  and  who  had  their  own  favourite  shrines  and 
altars,  sanctified  by  great  names  over  all  the  country,  and 
perhaps  saw  no  necessity  for  that  centralisation  of  worship. 
This  work,  as  happens  with  so  much  great  national  work,  be- 
sides the  glory  and  joy  of  executing  it, — which  he  recognised 
afterwards,  as  we  have  seen,  as  in  reality  the  recompense  of 
his  labour,  and  the  best  thing  in  his  life, — was  for  the  good 


CHAP.  V  THE  KINGS  OF  JUDAH  165 

of  future  generations  rather  than  of  those  immediately 
succeeding  him.  Its  result,  no  doubt,  was  immediate  dis- 
appointment. After  the  effort  of  its  construction,  and  the 
great  ceremonies  which  attended  its  consecration,  and  which 
must  for  the  mere  pageant's  sake,  if  nothing  else,  have  caused 
much  excitement,  and  attracted  crowds  to  Jerusalem — it  must 
soon  have  become  evident  to  the  king  that  the  habits  of  the 
people  were  too  deeply  rooted  to  be  overthrown,  and  that 
not  in  a  day  or  in  a  lifetime  would  that  revolution  be  accom- 
plished, and  the  heart  of  Israel  turned  to  a  sole  centre  of 
worship.  Even  in  the  time  of  Solomon  himself  it  is  very 
probable  that  the  attendance  at  the  yearly  ceremonies 
dwindled  away,  and  after  the  first  curiosity  was  satisfied,  and 
the  excitement  calmed  down,  that  Jerusalem  alone,  the  king's 
household,  and  the  citizens,  and  perhaps  the  villages  of  the 
surrounding  country,  furnished  all  or  almost  all  the  attendance 
in  its  courts.  This  would  be  so  natural  that  perhaps  it  did 
not  strike  any  one  as  wonderful  in  the  composure  of  everyday 
life  which  succeeded  the  transport  of  the  great  national 
foundation,  the  new  thing  in  Israel.  That  Solomon's  own 
action — whether  in  contemptuous  toleration  of  the  women's 
wishes  as  things  of  little  account,  or  in  spectatorship  of  them 
as  curious  moral  phenomena  which  it  was  worth  while  to 
study,  or — what  is  much  less  conceivable — in  actual  diver- 
gence from  his  own  loftier  way  into  the  worship  of  those 
idols  which  it  was  the  first  principle  of  the  Hebrew  creed  to 
denounce  and  condemn — should  have  been  the  first  and 
greatest  interruption  of  the  influence  of  the  established  creed 
and  worship,  is  wonderful  indeed.  Its  extraordinary  incon- 
sistency is,  however,  even  less  amazing  than  the  possibility 
of  a  downfall  of  the  kind  in  such  a  man. 

It  is  still  more  wonderful  to  think  of  the  sudden 
breaking  up  of  the  kingdom  which  had  been  established 
as  it  appeared  on  so  strong  a  foundation,  and  which  seemed 
to  have  so  many  guarantees  of  security.  That  one  slight 
soul  should  have  overturned  with  one  act  of  folly  the  labours 
of  two  great  men,  and  changed  the  future  of  his  race  at  a 
touch,  seems  well-nigh  inconceivable,  if  it  were  not  that  the 


i66  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D  '  part  i 

period  was  one  in  which  such  catastrophes  were  frequent, 
and  in  which  not  only  individual  kings  and  dynasties,  but 
great  empires,  disappeared  in  a  day,  and  were  succeeded  by 
others,  as  one  wave  follows  another  over  the  surface  of  the 
sea  :  and  also  because  the  whole  history  of  Israel  is  that 
of  a  struggle  between  good  and  evil,  a  sort  of  great  historical 
lesson  or  parable  written  in  the  lines  of  nature  and  following 
the  laws  of  a  succession  such  as  all  history  records  and 
acknowledges :  but  yet  in  all  its  circumstances  specially 
answering  to  the  great  purpose,  which  has  made  this  little 
story,  the  chronicle  of  one  of  the  smallest  realms  in  the 
world,  into  an  example  for  the  universe. 

No  doubt,  however,  Solomon's  very  splendour,  and  the 
great  things  he  had  done,  had  some  share  in  the  rend- 
ing asunder  of  the  kingdom.  He  had  inflicted  a  great 
deal  of  compulsory  work  upon  the  nation  which  loved 
fighting  better  than  labour,  and  demanded  contributions 
which  perhaps  were  not  always  given  with  a  willing  heart ; 
he  had  laid  upon  their  shoulders  the  yoke  which  national 
unity  implies,  the  expense  of  settled  government,  the  taxes 
— which  it  is  so  difficult  to  persuade  a  primitive  people  are 
but  their  honest  share  of  national  expenses.  All  the  stirring 
up  of  new  life  and  habits,  the  introduction  even  of  new 
industries,  the  work  in  Lebanon,  the  pressgang,  perhaps, 
which  constrained  the  timid  fishermen  of  the  coast  into 
those  voyages  beyond  sea  which  were  the  most  wonderful 
enterprise  of  the  time — were  disturbing  influences  to  the 
pastoral  people,  who,  when  they  were  not  fighting,  were 
chiefly  occupied  with  the  care  of  cattle  or  the  unlaborious 
tillage  of  a  soil  in  which  the  corn  grew  and  the  vine  threw 
forth  its  clusters,  almost  of  themselves.  And  the  final 
consolidation  of  these  wandering  tribes  into  a  fully-organised 
nation  was  a  delicate  operation  calling  for  both  prudence 
and  power,  neither  of  which  the  new  sovereign  possessed. 
The  disruption  was  as  sudden  as  the  formation  had  been. 
The  multitude  dispersed  as  it  had  come  together  under  one 
prevailing  influence.  The  attraction  of  a  personal  notability, 
a  great  hero  in  whose  prowess  and  power  of  defending  them 


CHAP.  V  THE  KINGS  OF  JUDAH  167 

from  all  assault  they  were  confident,  had  been  the  foundation 
of  the  throne.  And  now  the  counter-influence,  the  sense  of 
weakness  which  could  neither  protect  nor  deliver  them, 
exercised  a  similar  though  contrary  power.  "  To  your 
tents,  O  Israel ! "  The  multitudes  who  had  formed  the 
larger  portion  of  the  kingdom  melted  away,  and  the  house 
of  David  was  left  upon  its  hill-top  with  its  splendid  Temple 
and  palace  all  glowing  in  gold  and  colour,  far  too  magnificent 
for  its  diminished  resources  and  power.  It  had  the  promise 
of  continuance,  and  that  it  should  be  established  for  ever  ; 
but  the  greater  part  of  its  strength  and  prestige  was  irre- 
vocably gone. 

Yet  the  kingdom  of  Judah  and  Benjamin,  the  remnant, 
overweighted  with  the  relics  of  its  own  greatness,  was  in 
much  better  case  than  the  revolted  Israel.  For  that  self- 
doomed  people  there  was  henceforward  little  peace. 
Rebellion  after  rebellion  rose  among  them  :  one  usurper 
succeeded  another,  and  one  idolatry  was  added  to  another 
till  anarchy  and  blasphemy  reigned.  It  is  unnecessary  to 
enter  into  the  troubled  and  often  confused  story  which  is 
in  many  respects  the  most  like  a  collection  of  legends 
strung  upon  a  spare  thread  of  history  of  anything  in  the 
Scriptures.  The  story  of  the  prophets  Elijah  and  Elisha 
contain  some  of  the  finest  and  most  picturesque  scenes  and 
some  of  the  most  rude  and  trivial.  Nothing  can  exceed 
the  majesty  of  the  lonely  figure  in  the  desert,  his  head 
wrapped  in  his  cloak,  his  soul  enveloped  in  darkness,  who 
stands  before  the  great  invisible  God  through  thunder  and 
earthquake  in  an  extraordinary  mingling  of  submission  and 
defiance,  with  a  proud  desolation  and  sense  of  abandonment 
which  is  a  reproach  to  his  Maker,  "  I,  I  alone  am  left "  : — 
neither  is  there  anything  more  wonderful  in  those  ancient 
records  than  the  still  small  voice  which  is  the  voice  of  God, 
nor  that  which  it  says,  a  statement  so  unexpected,  an 
answer  which  cuts  the  very  ground  from  the  feet  of  the 
self-absorbed  and  self-asserting  prophet :  "  Yet  have  I  seven 
thousand  men  in  Israel  who  have  not  bent  the  knee  to  Baal." 
Human   folly  and   faithlessness  in  the  midst  cv^en  of  heroic 


1 68  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

suffering  and  solitude,  confronted  with  the  great  calm  and 
knowledge  of  all  secrets  which  are  in  the  fathomless  con- 
sciousness of  the  Divine,  were  never  more  exquisitely  or 
more  surprisingly  set  forth.  But  on  the  other  hand  the 
atmosphere  of  miracle  which  surrounds  Elisha  brings  us 
back  from  those  primeval  wilds  to  something  of  the  same 
feeling  with  which  we  regard  the  petty  prodigies  of  a 
mediaeval  saint  in  which  mere  convenience  is  sufficient 
warrant  for  a  breach  of  the  laws  of  nature,  and  the  sacred 
workman  fatigued  hangs  his  axe  upon  a  sunbeam,  with  a 
comfortable  composure  which  reaches  the  length  of  absurdity. 
The  almost  complete  freedom  of  the  miracles  of  Scripture 
from  this  continually -recurring  debasement  of  all  other 
records  of  sign  and  wonder,  is  a  striking  distinction  of 
sacred  story  :  only  lost,  I  think,  and  for  a  very  short  time, 
in  these  confused,  probably  abridged  and  bewildering  nar- 
ratives of  a  period  of  anarchy  and  trouble. 

This  history  of  continual  overthrow  and  re-establishment, 
the  reign  of  might  over  right, — in  which  such  supremacy  as 
there  was,  was  within  the  reach  of  every  strong  man  that 
might  arise,  and  no  principle  of  patriotism  or  fealty  survived 
to  protect  the  distracted  race, — lasted  for  some  hundred  and 
fifty  years  :  when  Israel  was  obliterated  by  the  Assyrians 
"and  their  race  and  record  swept  off  without  recovery. 
That  those  "seven  thousand" — a  numeral  of  multitude 
not  to  be  rigidly  interpreted — the  undefiled  souls,  incapable 
of  infidelity,  who  were  safe  in  the  perfect  understand- 
ing of  their  God,  maintained  their  religion  wherever  they 
were  driven  :  that  many  faithful  bands  and  groups  and  pious 
individuals  retained  during  all  changes  the  great  ideal  of 
the  national  mission  and  its  dwelling  at  Jerusalem,  there 
can  be  no  doubt :  or  that  many  a  humble  family  was  left 
when  the  miserable  stream  of  captives  disappeared  into  the 
darkness — feeding  their  flocks  upon  the  hills  of  Samaria  and 
keeping  up  the  traditions  of  a  purer  faith  among  the 
colonists  of  the  north.  But  Israel,  as  a  nation,  with  all 
its  anarchies  and  rebellion,  ceased  to  be,  in  the  natural  course 
of  events,  and  was  heard  of  no  more.      How  it  was  warned. 


THE  KINGS  OF  JUDAH 


169 


entreated,  threatened,  and  besought  to  save  itself  in  time, 
to  return  to  the  Lord,  and  give  up  its  idols,  and  live  purely 
and  truly  according  to  those  teachings  of  the  law  which  it 
had  inherited  as  much  as  Judah,  the  impassioned  utterances 
of  the  prophets  prove.  That  they,  too,  fell  into  utter  con- 
fusion, and  became  by  times  a  school  of  flatterers,  promising 
victory  and  happiness  to  please  the  king  and  keep  their 
popularity  among  the  people,  is  equally  evident.  But  there 
rarely  failed  some  independent  voice  to  proclaim  the  sudden 


SBBASTIEH   (SAMARIA) 


penalties  which  in  those  days  were  part  of  the  economy  of 
moral  government,  the  strong  and  unmistakable  language 
of  a  typical  and  primitive  age.  "  But  Israel  would  not 
hear,  my  people  would  not  consider."  The  ferocity  of 
nature,  the  wild  forces  of  rebellion  and  anarchy,  the  impure 
religions  that  were  the  special  affliction  and  temptation  of 
the  time,  swept  like  a  flood  over  the  people,  who  had  not 
been  able  to  preserve  their  individuality,  and  that  mission 
which  has  separated  their  race  from  all  others  in  the  records 
of  the  world. 

It    fell    to  Judah    to    keep    up    that    mission,   to   Judah 


170  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

already  distinguished,  which  held  the  privilege  of  birthright 
among  the  tribes,  and  which  had  already  been  chosen  to 
produce  the  reigning  family,  the  throne  established  upon 
the  promise  of  the  Lord.  It  is  curious  to  find  that  Benjamin, 
the  tribe  of  Saul,  which  might  well  have  entertained  a  grudge 
against  his  supplantcrs,  and  set  up  its  grievance,  as  a  motive 
for  withdrawal  more  keen  than  any  other  of  the  tribes  could 
claim,  should  be  the  one  faithful  to  the  house  of  David  which 
had  humiliated  and  overthrown  its  chief:  but  perhaps  the 
local  bond,  and  the  fact  that  Jerusalem  was  within  its  borders, 
gave  a  counterbalance  of  attraction. 

These  two  tribes  were  left  with  their  splendid  city,  in  the 
smallest  of  kingdoms — less  than  a  German  principality,  and 
more  than  usually  apt,  with  all  the  stores  of  gold  and  precious 
things  which  were  known  over  all  the  East  as  decorations  of 
Solomon's  Temple,  to  call  forth  the  cupidity  of  their  stronger 
neighbours.  It  was  not  indeed  very  long  before  this  tempta- 
tion brought  up  a  raid  of  Egyptians,  no  doubt  perfectly 
informed  through  the  attendants  of  Solomon's  queen  of 
what  wonderful  things  lay  at  the  mercy  of  an  invader  with 
so  small  a  contingent  to  guard  them.  Rehoboam  had  been 
but  five  years  upon  his  diminished  throne  when  this  occurred, 
and  there  is  no  record  even  of  any  serious  resistance  made. 
The  Egyptian  hordes  came  up  in  numbers  sufficient  to  over- 
power all  the  feeble  forces  of  Judah.  They  crushed  the 
"  fenced  cities,"  the  little  vanguard  of  defence  each  on  its 
hillside  which  stood  between  the  capital  and  the  desert  of 
the  south.  And  when  the  princes  gathered*  round  the  king 
in  Jerusalem  to  consult  what  were  their  possibilities  of  de- 
fence, the  prophet  who  came  into  the  midst  of  them  with 
his  message  forbidding  resistance,  was  no  doubt  the  most 
prudent  as  well  as  the  most  safe  adviser.  Rehoboam 
was  no  hero,  neither  had  he  the  talents  of  a  general. 
He  had  been  trained  in  the  arts  of  peace  rather  than  war, 
and  no  doubt  those  foolish  counsellors  who  had  betrayed 
him  into  the  great  misadventure  of  his  life,  were  like  himself 
the  product  of  a  luxurious  period  of  peace — or  they  would 
not  have  let  the   enemy  reach  their  very  gates  before  they 


CHAP.  V  THE  KINGS  OF  JUDAH  171 

gathered,  cowed  and  vacillating,  round  the  king  whom  they 
had  already  so  sorely  misled. 

Oh  for  one  hour  of  Wallace  wight, 
Or  well-skiH'd  Bruce  to  rule  the  fight ! 

Oh  for  the  Lion  of  the  house  of  Judah,  the  grim  Joab,  the 
three  mighty  men  who  once  burst  through  the  Philistine 
hosts,  to  bring  their  chief  a  cruse  of  water  from  the  well  of 
Bethlehem  !  No  such  heroes  were  those  who  looked  out 
with  pale  faces  from  the  ramparts  of  Jerusalem,  and  saw 
the  dark  Egyptians  with  their  strange  ensigns  swarming  in 
the  valley.  They  "  humbled  themselves,"  the  sons  of  those 
men  whose  feet  were  on  the  neck  of  kings,  the  heir  of  great 
Solomon,  the  successors  of  the  heroes — and  stood  by  with 
what  countenances  we  may  imagine  while  the  dark  crowd 
poured  into  the  Temple,  and  carried  off  its  riches,  tearing 
down  the  gold  from  cornice  and  lintel,  bearing  away  the 
great  shields  and  splendid  vases  which  must  have  made 
the  very  paths  burn  and  glow,  the  fierce  sun  striking  out 
dazzling  reflections  from  every  blazing  surface,  as  the  captors 
wound  down  the  hill  carrying  their  trophies  high.  Not  the 
old  men  alone  but  those  who  were  still  in  their  prime  must 
have  remembered  how  these  same  golden  vessels  had  thrown 
back  the  sunshine  in  triumph,  as  they  were  carried  into  the 
Temple  over  the  great  bridge  which  spanned  the  valley,  to 
decorate  the  house  of  the  Lord.  Vanity  of  vanities,  saith 
the  Preacher.  But  who,  the  darkest  of  dreamers,  the  most 
austere  of  judges,  could  have  imagined  that  it  would  come 
so  soon  ? 

The  history  of  Judah  is  a  long  tale  of  national  vicissitude, 
of  rising  and  falling  fortune,  such  as  has  always  distinguished 
primitive  history,  especially  in  the  East,  where  catastrophes 
are  so  sudden,  and  the  character  of  the  monarch  has  so 
much  to  do  with  the  prosperity  of  the  kingdom.  There 
were  great  examples  of  enlightened  and  powerful  princes 
who  crushed  the  idolatry  into  which,  up  to  a  certain  point 
in  their  history,  the  Jews  seem  to  have  been  so  ready  to  re- 
lapse, and  preserved  that  national  consecration  as  the  people 


172  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  parti 

of  God,  which  was  their  great  distinction  in  the  world,  mak- 
ing such  a  difference  between  them  and  their  neighbours  of 
Moab  and  Edom,  and  even  the  highly  civilised  and  wealthy 
Tyre,  as  words  cannot  say  ;  while  there  were  also  on  the 
other  hand  kings  of  less  note,  most  frequently  the  sons  of 
foreign  mothers,  to  whom  the  debasement  of  idolatrous 
worship  was  more  congenial  than  the  austere  rites  of  the 
Temple.  That  many  a  family  group  from  the  depths  of 
the  country  came  up  unmolested  in  their  humility  to  keep 
the  feasts  in  the  great  national  sanctuary  cannot  be  doubted, 
nor  that  there  came  great  seasons  of  national  compunction 
when  the  memorials  and  associations  of  idolatry  struck  the 
minds  of  the  faithful  with  unusual  horror,  and  caused  sudden 
uprisings  of  renewed  devotion  as  well  as  of  fierce  antagonism 
to  the  secret  shrines  and  false  gods  which  remained  here  and 
there  hidden  among  the  trees  in  some  luxuriant  grove.  On 
the  other  hand  it  was  more  easy  to  a  people  busy  with  their 
fields  and  flocks  to  offer  their  own  sacrifices  on  some  old 
altar  near  at  hand,  sanctified  by  the  recollection  of  patriarch 
or  prophet,  than  to  put  all  secular  business  aside,  and  with- 
draw the  ass  and  the  camel  from  the  necessities  of  daily 
work  in  order  to  present  themselves  at  Jerusalem  :  so  that 
the  two  impulses  acted  and  reacted  upon  each  other,  keep- 
ing a  perpetual  rising  and  falling  of  the  spiritual  barometer. 
Though  we  do  not  question  that  the  prosperity  and  peace  of 
Jerusalem  followed  these  risings  and  fallings,  the  quickened 
religious  life  being  a  .symptom  as  well  as  a  cause  of  quickened 
energy  and  greater  power,  while  the  vice  and  superstition  of 
the  idolatrous  rites — probably  pursued  among  the  Hebrews, 
who  were  nothing  if  not  religious,  with  greater  fervour  than 
among  the  careless  peoples  who  knew  no  better — involved 
debasement  in  every  characteristic  faculty :  yet,  no  doubt, 
all  was  worked  out  according  to  the  ordinary  rules  of  life 
without  bearing  any  specially  miraculous  character  in  the 
eyes  of  those  to  whom  it  was  the  course  of  every  day. 

And  there  were  great  princes  in  the  line  of  rulers  who 
succeeded  each  other  for  nearly  three  hundred  years,  son  fol- 
lowing  father  with  an   extraordinary  continuance,   while  the 


CHAi'.  V  THE  KINGS  OF  JUDAH  173 

Other  kingdoms  about  rose  and  fell,  and  Israel,  the  prey 
of  one  victorious  captain  after  another,  at  last  disappeared 
altogether  from  the  scene.  Asa,  Jehoshaphat,  Hezckiah, 
Josiah,  brought  back  something  of  the  wealth  and 
supremacy  of  Solomon's  days  again  and  again  to  the  city 
among  the  hills :  they  had  their  little  wars,  sometimes 
against  their  brethren  of  the  other  tribes,  sometimes  against 
the  old  traditional  foes  of  Ammon  and  Edom  and  Moab. 
And  in  the  midst  of  these  there  suddenly  rose  up  against 
them  a  more  powerful  enemy,  the  new  scourge  of  the  East, 
the  great  empire  which  had  appeared  like  a  portent  marching 
from  the  north  over  the  necks  of  all  the  lesser  sovereignties, 
the  Assyrians  who  swept  Israel  away,  and  made  in  the  end 
a  long  eclipse  of  Jerusalem.  But  even  against  this  foe  little 
Judah  held  head  for  a  long  time,  sometimes  by  diplomacy, 
sometimes  by  arms. 

It  was  a  hard  fighting  life  for  the  little  kingdom  which 
lay  surrounded  by  rivals  and  enemies,  with  its  little  circle  of 
fenced  cities,  its  citadel  on  the  hill  of  Zion,  its  sanctuary  still 
rich  with  spoil  which  might  well  have  attracted  envious  eyes, 
amid  the  other  little  brigands  of  nations  camping  to  the  east 
and  west,  towards  the  coast  of  the  Mediterranean  on  one  hand, 
and  beyond  the  Dead  Sea  on  the  other.  To  this  sanctuary 
every  one  of  the  greater  kings  made  such  additions  and 
restorations  of  ornament  and  wealth  as  were  possible,  and 
the  advent  of  each  new  monarch  of  the  higher  and 
better  kind  was  signalised  by  a  sort  of  reformation,  now 
greater,  now  less,  casting  down  of  high  places,  burning 
of  idols,  national  acts  of  worship — and  a  recall  to  the  service 
of  God  of  those  who  so  persistently  and  continuously  fell 
away  from  it  as  soon  as  the  immediate  pressure  was  with- 
drawn. This  curious  struggle  is  of  itself  a  sufficient  answer 
to  those  critics  who  would  have  us  believe  that  Jehovah,  the 
great  "  I  am  "  of  early  visitation,  was  a  local  deity  appro- 
priate to  the  Jews  as  Baal  or  Dagon  were  to  other  tribes  about 
them.  The  worshippers  of  Baal  and  Dagon  had  no  objection 
to  a  god  of  the  Hebrews.  When  the  colonists  of  Assyria 
were  settled  in  the  place  of  the   Israelites,  all  they  wanted 


174  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D  part  i 

was  to  be  taught  how  to  perform  the  worship  of  the  deity  of 
their  new  habitation.  They  were  quite  willing  and  ready  to 
add  that  god  to  their  other  gods,  and  no  prophet  or  even 
priest  objected  in  the  name  of  religion. 

But  with  the  Hebrews  there  was  no  such  toleration. 
The  struggle  against  idolatry  was  constant  and  undeviating ; 
though  it  was  also  at  the  same  time  an  ever-enduring  attrac- 
tion and  temptation.  The  Jews,  like  every  other  conquer- 
ing people,  retained  among  them  a  great  number  of  the 
aboriginal  inmates  of  the  country ;  they  were  their  neighbours, 
their  servants,  and  even  in  some  cases  their  defenders  :  and 
there  could  be  no  such  marked  inferiority  as  is  usually  seen  in 
the  subject  race  when  Hittites  and  Jebusites  were  found  even 
among  the  "  mighty  men  "  of  the  primitive  army.  Closer 
still  was  the  bond  made  by  marriages  between  the  superior 
and  inferior  races.  Myriads  of  little  Hebrews  must  have 
been  led  under  the  cover  of  their  mothers'  draperies  to  watch 
the  mysteries  of  the  grove,  to  kiss  their  hands  to  the  queen 
of  heaven,  in  a  ready  childish  devotion  half  made  of  natural 
obedience  and  half  of  the  charm  of  things  forbidden  ;  so  that 
the  earliest  associations  of  life  would  be  connected  with  those 
stolen  rites,  with  the  fascination  of  the  outdoor  service,  the 
great  stars  looking  down  through  every  green  tree  to  charm 
the  heart  into  natural  adoration  of  that  dazzling  host  of 
heaven.  The  child  brought  up  in  a  harem  is  naturally  far 
more  the  child  of  his  mother  than  of  his  father,  and,  no  doubt, 
this  fact,  explains  not  only  the  continual  relapses  of  the 
Hebrews,  but  the  denunciations  of  the  prophets  against 
women,  who,  notwithstanding  now  and  then  the  practical 
example  of  a  notable  woman,  like  her  who  spoke  to  Joab 
from  the  wall  of  Tekoa,  are  almost  universally  spoken  of  in 
the  Old  Testament  in  a  harsh  and  contemptuous  tone.  It 
would  be  curious  to  inquire  how  much  of  the  habitual  con- 
tempt of  the  tone  of  men  towards  women  in  all  ages  is 
derived  from  this  same  source — the  habit  of  the  early  world 
to  consider  the  often  foreign  and  alien  wife  as  in  continual 
secret  opposition,  baffling  and  bringing  to  nought  the  best- 
laid   plans   of  the  head  of  the  house,  who  was    but  one  to 


ciiAi'.  V  THE  KINGS  OF JUDAII  177 

resist  the  many,  full  of  individual  and  differing  characteristics, 
whom  all  his  efforts  could  never  fathom  or  understand.  The 
deeply  founded  doctrine  of  feminine  perversity  and  unac- 
countableness  may  well  be  one  of  those  survivals  of  the 
unfittest  sentiment,  which  mock  science  to  its  face. 

This,  hovv^ever,  is  too  natural  to  require  to  be  dwelt  upon. 
What  is  wonderful  is  that  so  evident  a  tendency  existing 
among  its  people  was  never  recognised  or  yielded  to  by 
the  little  kingdom  which  lay  in  the  very  heart  of  all 
these  idolatries.  Why  should  the  Hebrew  have  resisted 
the  tolerant  philosophy  of  his  neighbours  and  refused  to 
carry  on  his  own  worship  in  good-humoured  fellowship 
with  all  the  others  ?  Why  if  Jehovah  was  but  as  Baal 
should  that  little  belligerent  people  have  fought  a  con- 
tinual battle  for  His  supremacy  and  poured  out  of  its  heart 
every  denunciation,  every  scorn  that  human  words  could 
express  upon  the  things  of  wood  and  stone,  the  images  which 
had  eyes  and  saw  not,  which  had  ears  and  heard  not,  the  god 
who  perhaps  was  asleep,  or  on  a  journey — last  and  most 
tremendous  satire  of  all,  who  was  cut  from  the  same  tree 
with  which  the  workman  made  his  fire  ?  "  He  will  take  there- 
of and  warm  himself:  yea,  he  kindleth  it  and  bakcth  bread  : 
yea,  he  maketh  a  god  and  worshippeth  it."  Why  this 
irreconcilable  intolerance,  this  struggle  carried  on  from  age 
to  age  against  every  law  of  natural  association,  and  all  the 
precedents  and  all  the  examples  around  ? 

The  critics  can  allege  no  better  reason  than  a  con- 
spiracy of  certain  wild  bards,  half  poet,  half  maniac,  who 
invented  both  history  and  law,  not  to  speak  of  the  poetry  in 
which  it  cannot  be  denied  that  they  were  supreme,  in  order 
to  make  them.selves  the  rulers  of  the  destiny  of  their  people. 
Ikit  there  is  no  explanation  in  this  very  artificial  hypothesis 
of  the  violence  of  Hebrew  opposition,  from  their  first 
revelation  as  a  distinct  people,  against  all  fellowship 
with  idols.  The  struggle  was  one  of  life  and  death,  espe- 
cially in  the  latter  part  of  their  career.  Whenever  there 
was  an  infirm  or  feeble  ruler,  the  relaxed  authority  led  to 
ever  fresh    fallings  away  of  the  people  ;  but   whenever  the 

N 


178  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

government  was  in  a  capable  hand  it  began  with  a  reforma- 
tion, a  recalling  of  the  original  conditions  upon  which  the 
kingdom  was  constituted,  and  a  determined  stand  against  the 
idols  and  abominations  of  the  stranger.  The  anarchy  and 
continual  revolutions  of  Israel  pointed  the  moral  of  that 
other  and  greater  apostasy.  Had  their  God  been  but  the 
local  deity,  the  little  Jehovah  of  the  hill  country  and  the 
desert,  how  much  trouble  might  all  have  been  spared,  how 
much  unnecessary  pressure  of  the  conscience,  how  many 
national  convulsions !  The  other  gods  would  not  have 
objected  to  .share  their  Olympus,  such  as  it  was,  with  an 
additional  pretender  to  Divine  honours.  There  need  have 
been  no  trouble  about  the  matter.  A  god  the  more  was 
far  less  offence  than  a  nationality  the  more  in  that  crowded 
area  :  and  what  with  perpetual  bouts  of  fighting  and  endless 
treaties  and  pacts  between  themselves  in  an  ever-changing 
balance  of  power,  the.se  crowded  nations  managed  to  exist 
together  and  make  what  progress  was  possible.  But  between 
the  great  God  of  heaven  and  earth  and  the  idols  that  were 
stocks  and  stones  there  could  be  no  pact  or  compromise. 
The  fight  in  this  case  was  unceasing,  everlasting.  There  was 
no  remaining  silent  while  that  controversy  went  on.  It  was 
as  a  fire  burning  in  the  veins  of  him  who  was  compelled  to 
be  a  witness  of  the  transgression  of  his  people,  an  iniquity 
which  could  not  be  condoned. 

The  reign  of  Hezckiah  is,  perhaps,  the  greatest  era  in  the 
later  history  of  the  house  of  David.  We  have  a  twofold  record 
of  it,  that  of  the  historical  books,  and  the  more  detailed 
narrative  of  certain  portions  of  his  life  which  is  to  be  found 
amid  the  wonderful  odes  and  lyrics  of  the  prophet-poet 
Isaiah.  He  was  the  son  of  Ahaz,  one  of  the  princes  of  the 
line  who  had  fallen  away  most  fatally  from  the  tradition 
and  mission  of  his  race.  The  amplified  record  of  the  book 
of  Chronicles,  represents  that  king  in  the  blackest  colours. 
He  not  only  fell  into  the  most  brutal  of  idolatries,  that  of 
sacrificing  his  children  to  Moloch,  but  wreaked  a  sort  of 
superstitious  vengeance  upon  the  Temple  when  he  found  him- 
self in   the   lowest  depths   of  trouble,   not  only  conciliating 


CHAP.  V  THE  KINGS  OF  JUDAH  179 

the  Assyrians  by  the  sacrifice  of  its  treasures,  which  would 
be  comprehensible,  but  cutting  down  its  altars  with  the 
savage  disappointment  of  an  idolater  whose  god  has  not 
responded  to  his  appeal,  and  shutting  up  its  desecrated  doors, 
so  that,  for  a  time  at  least,  the  authorised  and  established 
services  of  religion  must  have  come  to  an  end.  His  son,  as 
sons  so  often  do,  no  doubt  a  disapproving  spectator  of  the 
father's  errors,  began  his  reign  upon  a  principle  entirely  dif- 
ferent. It  is  strange  to  think  what  must  have  been  the 
thoughts  of  a  young  man  who  had  himself  in  his  childhood 
perhaps  "  passed  through  the  fire  to  Moloch,"  if  that  mysteri- 
ous horror  means  anything  less  than  absolute  murder:  or,  at 
least,  had  received  an  image  of  the  horrible  ceremony  in  its 
fire  and  smoke  and  shrieks  of  suffering  into  his  earliest 
memory — when  he  himself  in  his  turn  assumed  the  power. 
His  mother  was  "the  daughter  of  Zechariah  " — probably  a 
Zechariah  described  in  the  reign  of  Hezekiah's  grandfather 
Uzziah  as  a  man  "  who  had  understanding  in  the  visions  of 
God  " — at  all  events  a  Hebrew  and  not  a  stranger  ;  and  he 
had  accordingly  in  all  probability  been  trained  in  the  faith 
of  his  fathers,  to  abhor  and  abominate  the  system  which 
reigned  in  Jerusalem  where  there  were  "  altars  in  every 
corner "  while  the  national  sanctuary  was  closed  and 
desolate. 

Hczekiah  began  his  reign  by  opening  and  repairing  the 
Temple,  calling  together  again  the  dispensed  priests,  and  with 
as  little  delay  as  possible  restoring  the  system  of  worship 
with  all  its  solemnities.  A  proscription  of  priests  has  been 
a  sufficiently  common  occurrence  in  history  since  then — but 
no  restoration,  perhaps,  has  been  so  complete  as  that  of  the 
tribe  of  banished  and  persecuted  Levitcs  of  all  classes  from 
the  high  priest  to  the  doorkeepers,  whom  I  lezckiah  "  gathered 
together  into  the  east  street,"  probably  that  which  is  still  known 
as  the  street  of  David,  in  order  to  commit  the  purification 
of  the  Temple  into  their  hands.  They  must  have  come  up 
from  the  villages  where  they  were  living,  and  out  of  the  depths 
of  the  city  where  they  had  been  hidden,  at  the  first  proclama- 
tion of  the  young  king  to  whose  accession,  no  doubt,  all   had 


I  So 


THE  HOUSE  OE  DAVID 


been  looking  with  anxiety  and  hope.  The  streets  of  Jeru- 
salem we  are  warranted  in  believing  are  little  changed  from 
that  day  :  with  the  same  deep  caverns  of  primitive  shops  and 
houses,  low  arches  opening  upon  a  chamber  with  little  shelter 
from   the  passer-by  outside  :   the  precipitous  narrow  line  of 


A    Sl'KEKT    IN    JEKUSALEM 


way  like  a  ravine  cut  deep  between  two  walls  of  dark  build- 
ings inclining  often  towards  each  other,  keeping  out  the  hot 
and  fervid  day  :  or  covered  with  sombre  arcades,  here  and 
there  debouching  into  a  little  opening  which  shows  a  blaze 
of  sunlight  at  the  end  of  the  darkness  :  and  now  and  then 
penetrated  by  some  arrow  of  light  from  a  window  or  slit  in  the 
lofty  arches  overhead.     The  crowd  still  streams  up  and  down 


CHAP.  V  THE  KINGS  OF  JUDAH  i8i 

upon  tlie  steep  causeway  and  continual  rough  steps  of  stone 
that  dive  into  the  hollow  with  an  abruptness  modified  by  no 
thought  or  possibility  of  wheeled  conveyance  passing  that  way. 
We  can  imagine  the  young  king  in  one  of  the  open- 
ings, addressing  the  servants  of  the  Temple  who  streamed 
into  the  arcade,  an  indefinite  crowd  in  their  white  tunics, 
while  the  priests  stood  round  him  below.  "  My  sons, 
be  not  now  negligent :  for  the  Lord  hath  chosen  you  to 
stand  before  him,  to  serve  him."  Other  than  mere  burning 
of  incense  was  the  business  required  of  them  now.  They 
had  to  cleanse  the  house  of  the  Lord,  the  priests  bringing 
out  "  all  the  uncleanness " — the  ruins  of  those  altars  and 
decorations  which  Ahaz  had  cut  in  pieces,  the  broken  metal, 
and  fragments  of  the  desecrated  sanctuary — to  the  outer  court, 
whence  all  this  rubbish,  which  once  was  hallowed  to  sacred 
use,  was  carried  by  the  Levites  into  the  valley  of  the  Kedron, 
to  be  cast  into  the  brook  there.  The  process  of  cleansing 
within  the  Temple  occupied  eight  days,  and  on  the  sixteenth 
day  the  restoration  was  completed.  Then  once  again 
Jerusalem  put  on  her  festal  robes  and  the  whole  city 
streamed  forth  following  the  joyful  procession  of  the  king 
across  the  great  bridge  that  spanned  the  valley,  where  the 
crowd  proceeding  from  one  height  to  another  must  have 
been  a  sight  unrivalled  to  all  the  groups  upon  the  housetops 
and  those  that  thronged  the  outer  courts  spreading  green 
and  cool  around  the  renovated  sanctuary.  The  harps  and 
the  cymbals,  "  the  instruments  of  David,"  the  priests  with 
•the  silver  trumpets  sounded  forth  a  welcome  as  the  procession 
drew  nigh.  "  And  when  the  burnt  offering  began,  the  .song 
of  the  Lord  began  also,  with  the  trumpets,  and  with  the 
instruments  ordained  by  David  the  king."  What  was  the 
.song  they  sang  ? 

Great  is  the  Lord,  and  greatly  to  be  praised 

In  the  city  of  our  (]od, 

In  the  mountain  of  His  holiness. 

Rcautiful  for  situation, 
The  joy  of  the  whole  earth. 
Is  Mount  Zion, 


1 82  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

The  city  of  the  great  King. 

God  is  known  in  her  palaces  for  a  refuge. 

Or  was  it  this,  the  burden  of  which  is  repeated  again  and 
again  in  all  the  accounts  of  the  different  restorations  of  the 
Temple  and  its  worship,  as  though  it  were  the  anthem  fixed 
for  such  occasions  ? — 

0  give  thanks  unto  the  Lord  ;  for  He  is  good  : 
For  His  mercy  endureth  for  ever. 

Let  Israel  now  say, 

That  His  mercy  endureth  for  ever. 

Let  the  house  of  Aaron  now  say, 
That  His  mercy  endureth  for  ever. 

Let  them  now  that  fear  the  Lord  say, 
That  His  mercy  endureth  for  ever. 

1  called  upon  the  Lord  in  distress  : 
The  Lord  answered  me, 

And  set  me  in  a  large  place. 


Open  to  me  the  gates  of  righteousness 
I  will  go  in  unto  them, 
And  I  will  praise  the  Lord  : 

This  gate  of  the  Lord, 

Into  which  the  righteous  shall  enter. 

I  will  praise  Thee  : 

For  Thou  hast  heard  me, 

And  art  become  my  salvation. 


Blessed  be  he  that  cometh 
In  the  name  of  the  Lord  : 
We  have  blessed  you 
Out  of  the  house  of  the  Lord. 

Over  the  deep  inner  valley  of  the  Tyropceon,  spanned  by 
Solomon's  great  bridge,  across  which  the  long  procession 
wound — over  the  valley  of  the  Kedron  upon  the  other  side  of 
Mount  Moriah,  now  called  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat,  which 
winds  round  the  base  of  the  Temple — the  unaccustomed 
music  must  have  rung  out  awaking  many  echoes.    The  great 


CHAi'.  V  THE  KINGS  OF  JUDAH  183 

sanctuary  stood  between  the  two,  upon  its  heights,  walled 
round  with  the  ramparts  of  Solomon.  Whether  the  king 
inhabited  Solomon's  palace  in  the  same  enclosure,  or  whether 
that — no  doubt,  ravaged  as  well  as  the  sanctuary  by  repeated 
invaders — had  also  fallen  into  ruin,  there  is  no  evidence.  But 
in  any  case  crowds  of  passengers  and  many  a  processional 
group  from  the  faithful  around  must  have  streamed  over  the 
bridge  keeping  up  a  continual  flutter  of  movement  and 
colour,  while  the  welcoming  blessing  rang  out  from  the 
sacred  gates  to  those  that  came  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  the 
blessing  out  of  the  house  of  the  Lord  which  was  so  old  and 
yet  so  new,  a  liturgical  drama  as  perfect  as  anything  that 
has  been  devised  by  all  the  refinements  of  ecclesiastical 
ceremony.  The  music  of  the  East  has  never  been  that 
language  of  the  soul  which  it  has  come  to  be  in  the  reflective 
and  sentimental  ages  of  modern  Europe,  and,  no  doubt,  it  was 
a  very  primitive  science  in  these  primeval  days,  a  chant  in 
which  the  words  and  meaning  of  the  song  were  of  more 
importance  than  harmony  and  effective  combinations  of 
sound.  Yet  when  the  great  strain  rose  up  to  the  skies  with 
many  a  heavy  bass  and  many  an  untrained  treble  joining  in, 
(and,  no  doubt,  also  many  a  sob  and  outcry  of  religious 
fervour)  as  the  multitude  poured  along  singing — "  Open  to  me 
.  the  gates  of  righteousness  " :  and  was  answered  by  the  clear 
pealing  notes  of  the  educated  voices — "  Blessed  is  he  that 
Cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  :  we  have  blessed  you  out  of 
the  house  of  the  Lord,"  the  effect  of  an  appeal  and  answer  so 
universal,  so  comprehensible,  the  real  voice  of  the  people, 
must  have  been  far  greater  than  the  most  admirably  con- 
structed service. 

I  once  heard,  in  Notre  Dame  in  Paris,  at  one  of 
the  conferences  dcs  /tonunes,  the  Lenten  course  of  in- 
struction which  occasionally  fills  that  wonderful  church 
with  an  assembly  of  men,  thousands  together,  the  great 
hymn  of  the  Stabat  Mater  sung  in  plain  song,  in  unison, 
by  the  whole  assembly.  Musical  connoisseurs  who  would 
have  listened  with  calm  criticism  to  the  most  perfect 
performance  of    Rossini's  chef-d oeuvre,  stood    there   speech- 


1 84  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  i-ARr  i 

less  and  could  only  listen  and  tremble  at  the  great  song  that 
rolled  through  those  noble  arches,  a  volume  of  sound   which 
the  imagination  could  not  but  feel  more  worthy  of  the  ear  of 
God  than  the  most  melodious  trills  and  intricate  harmonies  of 
all  the  singing  men  and  singing  women   in   the  world.      And 
thus  with  the  wild  Oriental  note,  the  cadenced  cry  of  a  primi- 
tive people,   must  the  renewed  service  of  the  Temple  have 
sounded  forth,  filling  the  vibrating  air  and  all  the  hill-tops  of 
Judah  with  the  sound  of  the  worship  of  a  multitude,  most 
imposing  and  impressive  hearing  to  be  had  upon  this  earth. 
The   same    scene   with    more    touching    ceremonies    still 
was  repeated  shortly  after,  when   the  first  Passover  of  which 
we  have  any  account  in  the  histories  of  Judah  as  a  kingdom, 
was  celebrated.      It  is  a  fact  much  relied  upon  by  those  who 
support    the  strange  theory  that   the  elaborate  ceremonials 
of  Jewish  worship  were  invented,  so  to  speak,  in  the  reign  of 
Hezekiah,    that    this    is    the    first    occasion    upon    which    it 
appears  in  the  national  history.      There  were,  however,  many 
reasons    which    make    the    detailed    narrative    here,    on    this 
special   occasion,  very  reasonable  and    natural.      It  was   not 
only  the  greatest  expression   of  a   national   reformation   and 
revival    of  religion — but    it  was  at   the  same  time  a  most 
politic  act,  perhaps  the  wisest  that  could   be  taken   to  bring 
about    a    reunion    of    the    so    long    separated    tribes   and   to 
re-establish  Jerusalem  as  the  general  centre  for  all  Hebrews, 
not  only  the  section  of  Judah  and  Benjamin.    The  kingdom  of 
Israel  had  just  come  to  a  disastrous  end,  and  its  constitution 
as  a  separate  economy  was  destroyed.      Its   king,  its  chiefs, 
all    the    governing    classes,    the    educated    and    the    wealthy 
portion  of  the  people,  had   been  carried  away  into  captivity  ; 
only  the   insignificant  and   harmless  part  of  the  nation,  the 
pastoral   dwellers  in   the    fields,    the    defenceless  villages   in 
which  was  no  danger  for  the  conquering  race,  were  left — a 
remnant  in   which,  however,  the  very  soul   of  a   nation  and 
its  best  power  of  renovation   often  lies.      To  draw  back   this 
remnant    of   Israel    into  its  old    allegiance  to  the  house  of 
David,  and    to  re-establish  the  ancient  unity  of  the  tribes, 
was  a  work  to  which   no  true  statesman  could   be  indifferent, 


CHAi'.  V  THE  KINGS  OF  JUDAII  185 

nor  any  sound  believer.  And  Hezekiah  and  his  counsellors 
proved  themselves  to  be  both  (as  well,  perhaps,  as  ambitious 
and  astute  men  of  the  world)  by  making  immediate  over- 
tures to  that  wreck  of  a  nation.  The  King  of  Judah  "sent 
posts  "  over  all  the  country  with  a  proclamation,  calling  upon 
the  people  to  come  up  to  Jerusalem  to  keep  the  Passover, 
"  for  they  had  not  done  it  of  a  long  time  in  such  sort  as 
it  was  written."  His  intention  was  that  this  invitation 
should  be  published  from  Dan  to  Beersheba  :  but  it  would 
seem  that  the  messengers,  in  the  distraction  of  the  times,  or 
because  the  other  parts  of  the  territory  of  Israel  had  been 
already  colonised  by  foreign  races,  accomplished  only  a  part 
of  their  mission.  The  posts  passed  from  city  to  city  through 
the  country  of  Ephraim  and  Manasseh  even  unto  Zebulun. 
They  were  not  well  received  in  the  house  of  Joseph  :  "  They 
laughed  them  to  scorn  and  mocked  them,"  we  are  told. 
"  Nevertheless  divers  of  Asher  and  Manasseh  and  of  Zebulun 
humbled  themselves,  and  came  to  Jerusalem  " — the  remnant 
of  humble  and  faithful  people  which  is  always  left  in  every 
period  of  national  apostasy.  Had  the  Passover  been  a  new 
thing  this  call  to  the  scattered  Israelites  would  have  been 
mere  arrogant  folly,  alienating  instead  of  conciliating :  for 
what  interest  could  Ephraim  or  the  other  tribes  have  had 
in  a  new  invention  of  the  Jews  ? 

From  all  the  immediate  country,  the  land  of  Judah  and 
Benjamin,  the  households  came,  with  that  united  force  of 
religious  feeling  and  of  the  pleasure  of  a  national  holiday 
which  is  in  every  pilgrimage.  Those  who  have  seen  the 
curious  groups  that  come  up  from  the  country  to  Jerusalem 
now,  in  slow  and  silent  progress,  the  women  mounted  high 
upon  the  camel,  sometimes  sheltered  by  a  strange  little 
tent  which  sways  and  .shakes  with  every  long  measured  step 
like  a  boat  at  sea,  the  man  armed  to  the  teeth,  with  his 
feeble  old  musket  slung  over  his  shoulder,  his  pistol  and  knife 
in  his  belt,  mounted  upon  the  ass  which  always  heads  the 
procession,  or  walking  by  its  side — can  form  some  idea  of 
what  the  travelling  pilgrims  mu.st  have  looked  like,  as  in 
solitary  families,  or  groups  and  combinations,  from  town  and 


1 86  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

village  they  came  along  towards  the  white  walls  and  towers 
gleaming  on  the  hillside,  and  visible  far  off  from  the  direction 
of  Israel,  from  all  the  paths  that  led  to  the  north.  The 
religion  of  Mohammed  in  its  skilful  adoption  of  dates  and 
customs  has  organised  a  yearly  pilgrimage  from  Jerusalem 
to  the  so-called  tomb  of  Moses,  which  makes  a  sort  of 
balance  to  the  feasts  of  the  Jewish  Passover  and  the  Christian 
Easter,  and  thus  calls  together  a  crowd  of  pious  Mussulmans 
to  hold  in  check  the  other  crowds  that  pour  into  Jerusalem 
at  that  season.  And  it  is  among  the  pilgrim  groups,  which 
come  from  the  distant  desert  and  many  a  far-off  village  for  this 
ceremonial,  that  the  most  perfect  picture  of  the  primitive 
pilgrimage  is  furnished.  The  pilgrim  from  Asshur  or 
Zebulun  would  have  no  rifle,  no  pistol,  in  his  belt,  with  which 
to  defend  his  household — but  he  would  have  hJs  knife,  his 
spear,  perhaps  a  bow  slung  at  his  back  :  and  his  cloak  of 
camel's  hair,  the  covering  on  his  dark  head  of  kerchief  or 
hood  or  twisted  shawl  would  be  much  the  same.  And  the 
camel  and  the  ass,  strange  companions  through  every 
Eastern  journey,  the  humble  brother  in  front,  the  garrulous 
burden-bearer  behind,  are  identical.  And  the  same  is  the 
long  slow  journey  day  by  day,  the  same  patient  progress,  the 
great  soft  swaying  tramp  of  the  laden  beast,  sinking  and 
rising  in  monotonous  motion,  the  night  encampments  by 
the  little  watchfire — as  it  is  the  same  clear  heaven  and 
glowing  stars,  vibrating  in  intensity  of  light,  which  shine  over 
the  heads  of  the  pilgrims. 

When  the  Passover  had  been  celebrated  with  all  its 
touching  and  significant  rites,  with  the  thin  crackling  cakes 
of  unleavened  bread,  and  the  blood  of  the  lamb,  the  sign  of 
redemption,  on  every  lintel  —  all  Judah,  assembled  for  the 
feast,  and  the  visitors  from  Israel  who  swelled  their  ranks, 
made  a  raid  forth  into  the  country  to  all  the  dependent 
cities,  and  in  the  fervour  of  their  faith  assailed  the  centres 
of  idolatry,  cut  down  the  groves  and  broke  the  images 
which  meant  not  only  the  worship  of  idols  but  every  im- 
morality and  uncleanness.  It  is  a  mission  which  is  always 
congenial  to  a  multitude,  and,  no  doubt,  the  work  of  destruc- 


CHAP.  V  THE  KINGS  OF  JUDAJJ  187 

tion  was  not  only  a  cutting  ofif  of  the  accursed  thing  but  an 
outlet  for  the  pent-up  excitement  of  so  much. hot  popular 
feeling.  The  Israelites  must  have  carried  on  the  work  as 
far  as  they  were  able  as  they  returned  to  their  homes,  for 
it  is  recorded  that  it  extended  even  into  Ephraim  and 
Manasseh.  We  may  well  believe  that  enough  of  ancient 
sentiment  remained  through  the  country  to  make  a  Hebrew 
village  still  blush  for  the  grove  and  the  idol  to  which  it  gave 
an  intermittent  worship,  and  that  many  would  be  ashamed 
to  resist  this  raid  of  reformation  :  even  though  they  might 
steal  back  as  soon  as  the  noisy  train  of  reformers  had  swept 
past,  to  pick  up  the  fragments  of  the  image  which  had  not 
known  how  to  defend  itself,  and  to  cherish  the  quick  spring- 
ing saplings  with  which  nature,  more  capable,  would  soon 
make  up  her  part  of  the  mischief  We  hear  no  more  of 
the  Passover  in  the  days  of  Hezekiah,  probably  because  it 
became  a  matter  of  common  use  and  wont  and  demanded 
no  further  mention  in  the  brief  record  which  deals  only  with 
the  chief  features  of  his  reign.  One  result  of  the  great 
revival  of  faith  was,  however,  that  the  people,  in  the  impulse 
of  that  renewed  unity  and  devotion,  offered  their  tithes  and 
contributions  so  largely,  that  for  the  first  time  there  was  need 
of  storehouses  in  which  to  lay  up  the  superfluity  which  was 
so  much  more  than  enough  for  immediate  needs. 

It  was  not  very  long,  however,  before  Judah  shared  the 
terror  and  disturbance  which  the  new  and  great  scourge  of 
the  East,  the  Assyrian,  carried  all  around.  King  Ahaz,  the 
father  of  Hezekiah,  had  invited  the  aid  of  that  great  power 
against  his  familiar  enemies  of  Damascus,  and  had  accepted 
the  character  of  a  tributary  and  vassal  :  and  Jerusalem,  no 
doubt,  had  trembled  yet  exulted  in  its  own  safety  as  it  saw 
the  other  little  kingdoms  round  carried  off  into  captivity  by 
this  irresistible  conqueror.  It  must  have  seemed  little  less 
than  foolhardiness  on  the  part  of  Hezekiah,  notwithstanding 
the  victories  over  the  Philistines  with  which  his  reign  began, 
to  withdraw  the  submission  which  his  father  had  made. 
But  he  was,  no  doubt,  made  bold  by  his  prosperity  and 
prospect  of  regaining  supremacy  over  all   Israel,  and  by  a 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID 


strong  confidence  in  the  succour  and  support  of  God.  "  He 
rebelled  against  the  King  of  Assyria  and  served  him  not " 
is  the  brief  record  :  but  it  was  not  long  before  he  was 
compelled  to  repent  of  this  boldness,  and  renew  the  tribute 
his  father  had  paid.  Not  satisfied  with  this  compromise, 
however,  the  great  Sennacherib,  himself  just  setting  forth  on 
an  expedition  against  Egypt,  sent  his  general  Rabshakeh  to 
summon  Jerusalem  to  complete  submission,  or  in  default  of 
this  to  take  the  city,  with,  no  doubt,  the  inevitable  carrying 
away  into  captivity  which  usually  followed.  Nothing  could 
be  more  picturesque  or  striking  than  the  scene  in  which  these 
envoys  are  made  visible  to  us  outside  the  walls  of  Jerusalem 
parleying  with  the  representatives  of  the  king,  and  shouting 
forth  their  message  so  that  all  the  dismayed  and  eager 
crowds,  thronging  every  point  of  vantage,  might  hear. 

Much  had  been  done  by  King  Uzziah,  the  great- 
grandfather of  Hezekiah,  to  strengthen  the  fortifications  of 
his  capital.  He  had  built  "  towers  in  Jerusalem  at  the 
corner  gate,  and  at  the  valley  gate,  and  at  the  turning  of 
the  wall,"  all  probably  on  that  exposed  portion  of  the  city 
towards  the  north  whence  danger  came — all  invaders  down 
to  Titus  making  their  encampments,  it  would  appear,  about 
Mount  Scopus,  and  attacking  from  that  side.  The  city  had 
sustained  at  least  one  siege  in  the  interval,  but  the  towers 
still  remained,  huge  erections  built  with  great  stones,  no 
doubt,  like  those  pieces  of  ancient  wall  which  still  remain, 
buildings  of  which  the  existing  Tower  of  David  may  give 
some  idea.  Hezekiah  himself  had  "  repaired  the  wall  where 
it  was  broken,  and  raised  it  up  to  the  towers,  and  another 
wall  without,  and  repaired  Millo  in  the  city  of  David,  and 
made  darts  and  shields  in  abundance."  He  had  even 
diverted  the  course  of  the  waters  which  supplied  Jerusalem 
and  stopped  up  the  fountains,  that  there  might  be  no  water 
for  the  besiegers.  Perhaps  some  of  the  uncouth  machines 
"  invented  by  cunning  men  to  be  on  the  towers,  and  upon 
the  bulwarks,  to  shoot  arrows  and  great  stones  withal," 
might  still  remain  in  their  old  places — means  of  desperate 
defence  such   as   that    made  in   later  times  when    the  Jews 


CHAP.  V  THE  KINGS  OF  JUDAH  191 

fought  every  inch  of  their  doomed  town  and  fortress 
against  all  the  strength  of  the  Roman  army  :  so  that  the 
town  was  fully  fortified  and  as  able,  perhaps,  to  encounter  a 
siege  as  any  small  and  crowded  town  subject  to  blockade 
on  all  sides  by  overpowering  numbers  could  be.  But  that 
was  little  even  in  days  before  artillery  was  invented  :  and 
the  heavy  hearts  of  the  Jewish  Ministers  may  well  be 
imagined  as  they  went  out  to  meet  the  embassy  which  had 
arrived  outside  the  walls,  at  the  hqad  of  some  portion  of 
vSennacherib's  army,  enough  to  frighten  into  submission  the 
little  royal  town  which  could  never  have  held  head  against 
so  great  an  invader.  Sennacherib  himself  was  besieging 
Lachish  in  the  plains,  the  capital  of  the  Philistines :  and 
there  was  in  the  mission  of  his  general  an  '  undisguised 
contempt  for  the  strength  of  Jerusalem,  and  conviction  that 
the  mere  sight  of  the  Assyrians  would  strike  terror  to  the 
Jewish  .soul.  "  He  stood  by  the  conduit  of  the  upper  pool 
in  the  highway  of  the  fuller's  field" — having  apparently 
made  a  circuit  to  the  western  side  of  the  city  circling  that 
corner,  "  the  turning  of  the  wall,"  and  anxious,  no  doubt,  to 
finish  summarily  this  small  piece  of  business,  without  the 
trouble  or  expense  of  a  siege.  Whether  he  had  tried  his 
arguments  first  upon  the  representatives  of  Hezekiah  before 
he  lifted  his  voice,  and  addressed  the  crowd  upon  the  walls 
which  had  come  to  gaze  and  listen  to  the  parley,  we  are  not 
told  :  but  it  is  clear  that  he  perceived  the  advantage  of  raising 
a  popular  panic  and  gaining  the  town  without  fighting. 

"In  what  does  Hezekiah  trust?"  cried  the  envoy — "in 
the  staff  of  this  broken  reed,  on  Egypt  ?  But  if  thou  say  to 
me.  We  trust  in  the  Lord  our  God,  am  I  now  come  up 
without  the  Lord  against  this  land  to  destroy  it  ?  The 
Lord  .said  unto  me.  Go  up  against  this  land,  and  destroy 
it."  Rabshakeh  was  evidently  a  man  aware  of  the  past 
history  of  the  Jews,  though  making  the  natural  mistakes 
of  a  foreigner  in  some  important  matters.  He  had  heard  of 
the  destruction  of  the  images  by  Hezekiah,  and  he  imagined 
these  to  be  images  of  the  god  of  the  country,  the  local 
deity — sharing  in  this  respect  the  views  of  the  enlightened 


192  THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  part  i 

critics  of  the  nineteenth  century.  "  Is  not  this  he  whose 
high  places  and  whose  altars  Hezekiah  has  taken  away  ? " 
The  vengeance  of  that  god  was  thus  on  his  side  as  well  as 
the  might  of  his  master,  and  every  element  was  combined 
to  strike  the  populace  with  terror.  The  entire,  yet  perfectly 
natural,  misconception  in  this  address,  and  the  curious  differ- 
ence between  the  great  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth — of  whom 
the  dullest  Jew  had  some  conception,  as  a  Being  standing 
alone,  eternally  separate  from  and  opposed  to  all  the  petty 
gods  devised  by  the  imagination  of  man — and  the  assump- 
tion of  the  cultivated  Assyrian  magnate  who  understood 
nothing  better,  is  full  of  instruction.  He  must  have  sup- 
posed them  a  kind  of  infidels  who  had  destroyed  their  gods 
in  pride  and  defiance  of  all  spiritual  influence. 

Eliakim  and  Shebna  and  Joah,  the  ministers  of  Hezekiah, 
listened  with  dismay  to  an  address  which  was  so  well  calcu- 
lated to  arouse  the  smouldering  superstitions  of  all  that 
eager  fringe  of  listeners  on  the  walls.  How  easy  to  make 
them  believe  that  the  vengeance  of  Baal  and  Astarte  had 
brought  this  proud  invader  upon  them,  and  that  these 
offended  deities  smote  by  his  arm  !  They  besought  the 
Assyrian  to  speak  in  his  own  language,  which  they  could 
understand,  and  riot  in  that  of  the  people,  the  hasty  and 
incompetent  judges  whose  panic  might  at  any  moment 
precipitate  matters.  But  this  very  prayer  was,  no  doubt, 
an  inducement  the  more  to  make  Rabshakeh  raise  his  voice 
and  strengthen  his  argument.  "  Hath  my  master  sent 
me  to  thy  master,  and  to  thee,  to  speak  these  words?"  he 
said  :  "  hath  he  not  sent  me  to  the  men  that  sit  upon  the 
wall  ?"  "  They  held  their  peace,  and  answered  him  not  a 
word,"  says  the  record.  .  .  .  But  when  Hezekiah's  ministers 
had  returned  wnthin  the  gates  they  rent  their  garments  in 
sign  of  sorrow  and  humiliation,  and  with  bowed  heads  went 
up  among  the  anxious  crowds  of  the  people  to  lay  the 
message  of  the  Assyrian  before  the  king.  Hezekiah  received 
them  with  equal  distress  and  almost  despair :  for  the  fate 
that  awaited  him  and  his  people  whether  they  yielded  or 
whether  they  resisted  was  equally  terrible.      The   best   that 


THE  KINGS  OF  J U UAH  193 


was  offered  was  that  they  should  be  carried  away  "  to  a  land 
like  your  own  land,  a  land  of  corn  and  wine";  captivity,  in 
any  case,  with  all  the  horrors  which  no  fine  promises  could 
do  away  with,  a  fate  which  they  had  seen  to  overtake  their 
brethren  of  Israel.  In  this  terrible  conjuncture  the  anxious 
king  and  his  ministers  could  take  refuge  but  in  one  hope — 
the  aid  of  God  :  and  even  that  with  all  the  trouble  and 
uncertainty  which  attends  an  appeal  to  the  unseen,  faith 
itself  trembling  even  in  its  utmost  rapture  lest,  perhaps,  the 
will  of  the  Supreme  Helper  might  not  have  settled  the 
alternative  so.  The  unhesitating  response  of  the  Prophet 
Isaiah,  here  first  introduced  into  the  record,  when  called 
upon  to  answer  for  the  Lord,  reassured,  however,  the 
trembling  questioners.  "  I  will  send  a  blast  upon  him, 
and  he  shall  hear  a  rumour."  With  what  wondering 
suspense  must  these  words  have  been  heard  !  for  what 
rumour  could  conjure  away  the  substantial  might  of  the 
Assyrian  cohort  lying  outside  their  walls  ? 

The  promise  was,  however,  almost  immediately  fulfilled  : 
for  in  the  meantime  the  Assyrian  envoy  without  the  walls  had 
heard  that  his  master  had  withdrawn  from  the  siege  of 
Lachish  to  Libnah,  along  with  a  rumour  of  the  approach 
of  the  King  of  Egypt  with  a  great  army  which  made  it 
expedient  that  all  the  forces  of  Assyria  should  be  collected 
together.  In  haste,  then,  intending  a  speedy  return  and 
meaning  to  make  short  work,  when  he  came  back,  of  the 
city,  which  was  no  more  than  a  mouthful  in  comparison  with 
the  conquests  of  Assyria,  Rabshakeh  sent  his  ultimatum  to 
the  king.  The  idea  of  resistance  in  the  ordinary  sense  of 
the  word  does  not  seem  to  have  occurred  as  possible  to  the 
rulers  of  Jerusalem.  Hezekiah  did  not  call  to  the  walls 
the  defenders  whose  hearts  had  been  melted  within  them 
by  the  Assyrian's  defiance.  There  were  among  them  men 
who  had  fought  and  conquered  in  Philistia,  but  the  very 
name  of  the  greater  foe  seems  to  have  been  enough  to 
quench  all  courage.  What  the  king  did  was  to  go  up  to 
the  Temple,  and  spread  out  the  insulting  letter  before  the 
Lord.     The  whole  narrative  is  full  of  vivid  life  and  pathos. 

O 


194  THE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D  part  i 

Classic  story  has  no  parallel  for  those  conflicts  of  the  weak 
with  the  mighty,  those  struggles  in  which  the  race  is  not  to 
the  swift  nor  the  battle  to  the  strong,  with  which  the  litera- 
ture of  the  Hebrew  nation  has  leavened  our  imagination  in 
these  later  ages. .  The  catastrophe  which  followed  and  which 
for  a  time  delivered  Jerusalem  from  all  fear  of  the  Assyrians 
brings  the  Hebrew  record  into  sudden  contact  with  the 
beginnings  of  other  history  without  diminishing  the  mystery 
of  the  event  or  giving  us  any  clearer  understanding  of  it. 
Sennacherib  and  his  army  had  marched  on  to  conclude 
matters  with  Egypt,  a  foe  more  worthy  of  their  steel, 
meaning  afterwards  on  their  homeward  way  to  crush  the 
little  rebel  Jerusalem  :  and  had  reached  the  Egyptian  borders 
when  the  silent  and  instantaneous  overthrow  of  all  their 
forces  occurred.  The  reader  of  the  Bible  record  has 
generally  understood  that  the  army  destroyed  in  a  night 
lay  outside  the  very  walls  of  Jerusalem.  But  this  is  not 
said  :  indeed  it  is  clearly  intimated  that  there  was  no  army 
lying  outside  Jerusalem  at  the  time  when  Isaiah  in  the 
Temple  proclaimed  the  doom  of  the  Assyrian.  It  is  very 
curious  that,  according  to  Herodotus,  in  the  narrative  given 
him  by  the  priests  of  Memphis,  the  preliminaries  of  this 
destruction  should  be  almost  exactly  the  same,  with  the 
difference  that  the  King  of  Egypt  was  the  suppliant,  and 
that  the  promise  of  deliverance  came  to  him  in  the  temple 
of  his  god,  a  remarkable  and  somewhat  confusing  supple- 
ment to  that  of  the  Bible.  It  leaves  no  doubt  as  to  the 
event :  the  explanation  of  it — the  irruption  of  the  field  mice 
and  their  destructive  work,  seems  somewhat  fantastic  ;  but 
on  this  point  the  Hebrew  record  gives  no  information. 
Whatever  it  was,  it  not  only  destroyed  his  army,  but  cowed 
the  spirit  of  Sennacherib.  He  returned  hastily  to  his  own 
country,  to  his  great  Nineveh,  thinking  for  the  moment  of 
no  more  sieges  or  defiances  of  God.  And,  though  he  lived 
to  fight  in  other  regions  before  his  miserable  death  by  the 
hands  of  his  own  sons,  he  never  came  near  Jerusalem  again. 
The  story  of  Hezekiah's  sickness  and  miraculous  pre- 
servation, the  not  very  noble  or  generous  satisfaction  which 


CHAP.  V  THE  KINGS  OF  JUDAH  195 

he  expressed  in  the  exclamation  :  "  There  will  be  peace  in 
my  day "...  are  personal  incidents  into  which  it  is  un- 
necessary to  enter.  Perhaps  that  ejaculation  is  not  so  selfish 
as  it  appears.  It  is  a  sentiment  very  natural  to  a  man 
growing  old  who  has  had  his  share  of  the  struggles  and 
defeats  of  life,  and  who  no  longer  feels  himself  able  to  cope 
with  the  contradictions  of  the  wicked.  Such  a  man  will 
naturally  breathe  a  sigh  of  satisfaction  over  the  assurance  of 
a  tranquil  ending,  an  evening  of  life  disturbed  by  no  calamity, 
even  though  he  may  recognise  sadly  that  the  troubles 
which  he  sees  gathering  round  will  burst  on  his  successor. 
That  successor  will,  at  least,  be  a  new  man  with  strength  to 
bear  them,  not  one  disheartened  and  worn  out  by  many 
conflicts  past.  And  this  king  though  a  great  reformer  and 
pious  man  was  not  a  hero.  Of  war  or  fighting  he  can  have 
known  little,  notwithstanding  his  successful  struggle  with 
the  Philistines.  No  impulse  of  resistance  seems  ever  to  have 
been  in  his  mind  except  against  his  sentence  of  death,  for 
the  revocation  of  which  he  pleaded  passionately — a  good 
but  timid  man,  afraid  to  fight,  afraid  to  die,  though  not 
afraid  in  the  direct  service  of  God  to  defy  the  superstitions 
into  which  his  people  had  fallen,  and  make  urgent  and 
trenchant  reformation. 

It  has  pleased  the  critics  to  choose  Hezekiah  as 
the  Pisistratus  of  the  Hebrews,  the  Meca^nas  of  the 
prophets,  under  whom  a  great  literary  movement  sprang 
up,  and  the  beginning  of  that  conspiracy  and  invention  of 
a  religion  which  it  is  supposed  arose  in  his  days.  In  the 
entire  absence  of  proof  it  is,  of  course,  quite  simple  to  con- 
jecture and  assert  anything  of  the  kind,  and  Hezekiah 
might  have  invented  the  loom  for  anything  we  know,  or 
can  prove  to  the  contrary.  The  only  evidence  for  the 
suggestion  is  that  a  number  of  prophets,  the  majority  of 
those  whose  writings  are  preserved  to  us,  arose  in  or  about 
his  time  ;  and  that  there  was,  in  fact,  during  that  period  a 
great  outburst  of  poetry,  the  greatest  perhaps  known  in 
history,  poetry  full  of  the  sublimest  sentiments  and  endowed 
with    the    most    beautiful    power   of   expression,    besides    its 


196  rUE  HOUSE  OF  DA  VI D  part  i 

claim  of  prophetic  inspiration  and  of  opening  the  future  to 
the  ghmpses  of  men.  Such  a  great  figure  as  Isaiah  suddenly 
arising  in  a  limited  circle  is  assuredly  enough — or  at  least 
may  appear  so  to  the  after  historian — to  put  a  stamp  upon 
his  age.  We  know,  indeed,  that  our  own  great  Milton,  not 
to  speak  of  our  still  greater  Shakespeare,  made  very  little 
immediate  difference  to  the  time  in  which  they  lived  and 
owed  their  greatness  to  no  royal  patronage.  And  we  know 
also,  what  is  perhaps  more  cognate  to  the  matter,  that 
Isaiah's  writings  are  full  of  a  perpetual  protest  against  his 
time  and  appeal  to  a  better  to  come,  as  are  those  of  most 
great  religious  moralists  and  poets.  But  yet  by  right  of 
his  prophetic  character  he  occupied,  no  doubt,  a  certain 
definite  position,  and  was,  we  know,  consulted  on  occasional 
emergencies.  The  fact  of  his  existence  and  of  that  of 
Amos  and  other  prophets,  chiefly  in  fierce  opposition  to  the 
course  of  events  and  the  conduct  of  society  :  and  one  little 
verse  in  Proverbs  which  records  the  fact  that  the  six 
chapters  that  follow  "  are  also  proverbs  of  Solomon,  which 
the  men  of  Hezekiah  King  of  Judah  copied  out "...  are 
the  sole  evidence  (the  latter  the  only  document)  in  proof 
of  the  theory  that  the  time  of  Hezekiah  was  something 
like  "  the  spacious  times  of  great  Elizabeth "  in  our  own 
history. 

As  for  the  further  development  of  that  theory  which  is, 
that  the  law  as  well  as  the  prophets  originated  in  his  reign, 
and  that  the  whole  system  of  the  Jewish  economy  was 
invented  by  "  the  men  "  who  copied  out  the  proverbs,  there  is 
no  evidence  at  all  in  the  Bible,  which  contains  the  only  con- 
temporary information.  It  may  be  so,  as  anything  may  be 
of  which  we  know  nothing  whatever,  and  have  no  means  of 
knowing  :  and  the  assertion  is  so  far  safe  enough,  because 
we  cannot  prove  that  anything  did  or  did  not  originate  in 
the  age  of  Hezekiah  :  but  that  is  all.  It  is  seldom  that  a 
Puritan  king,  destroying,  as  no  doubt  he  did,  some  advanced 
specimens  of  art  in  the  high  places  of  the  idol  worship,  and 
probably  the  finest  statuary  of  the  time  in  the  images  of  the 
idols,  is  at  the  same  time  a  great  patron   of  literature.      But 


CHAP.  V  THE  KINGS  OF  JUDAII  197 

we  may  at  least  be  glad  that  Hezekiah  in  this  hypothesis  is 
spared  the  denunciations  of  the  artist.  All  we  can  know 
of  him  with  any  certainty  is  that  he  was  a  great  reformer, 
that  he  was  no  general,  that  he  was  unwise  in  displaying  all 
his  stores  and  wealth  of  precious  metal  to  the  Assyrian 
ambassadors  when  they  visited  him  in  the  way  of  peace, 
thus  exciting  their  cupidity  and  inducing  them  to  make 
notes  of  future  probabilities  of  spoil  : — and  that  he  was  very 
much  afraid  of  dying  and  thankful  to  enjoy  a  tranquil  old 
age,  putting  away  from  him  the  thought  of  troubles  to  come. 
This  is  not  the  picture  of  a  very  great  king  :  and  it  is  evident 
that  he  had  not  the  power  to  amend  or  even  overawe  the 
society  of  his  time,  of  which,  as  we  shall  hereafter  see,  the 
prophets  made  so  gloomy  a  description  ;  but  he  was  very 
zealous  for  the  framework  of  religion  and  a  pious  though 
timid  man. 

After  Hezekiah  came  the  long  and  evil  reign  of  Manasseh, 
who  undid  almost  all  that  his  father  had  done,  and  the  short 
one  of  his  son  Amon,  who  followed  that  example  :  followed 
by  the  strong  reaction  of  Josiah  who  once  more  enacted  the 
part  of  reformer,  and  in  whose  reign  "  the  book  of  the  law  " 
was  found  in  the  Temple.  The  critics,  pursuing  their  former 
theory  of  an  elaborate  conspiracy  descending  from  age  to 
age,  assert,  of  course,  that  this  book  of  the  law  was  not  found, 
but  newly  written,  to  answer  the  further  exigencies  of  the 
time,  and  imposed  upon  the  guileless  king  and  credulous 
people  by  the  high  officials  of  the  kingdom,  in  concert  with 
Jeremiah,  the  prophet,  by  whom  it  was  written.  It  need 
scarcely  be  pointed  out  that  such  a  consistent  long-extended 
conspiracy  is  unique  in  the  history  of  man,  and  that  Jere- 
miah's own  writings  are  extant,  from  which  it  may  be  judged 
whether  he  was  likely  to  set  his  hand  to  a  deliberate  and 
elaborate  fraud.  The  book  of  the  law  which  thus  suddenly 
burst  upon  the  public  of  Judah  was,  as  is  asserted,  the 
book  of  Deuteronomy  :  and  we  may  well  envy  the  people  of 
that  ancient  time  such  a  piece  of  good  fortune.  It  is  not 
often,  nay  unparalleled  and  without  any  analogy,  that  so 
great  a  contribution  to  national  history,  such  a  constitution 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID 


and  code  of  laws,  should  be  published  to  a  people  in  a 
moment  without  warning  or  tradition.  But  in  any  case  the 
effect  it  produced  was  great  and  called  forth  a  second 
reformation  of  the  same  sort  as  that  of  Hezekiah,  but  still 
more  thorough — the  idols,  restored  during  the  two  interven- 
ing reigns,  being  not  only  broken  but  stamped  into  powder, 
that  no  model  for  later  days  might  remain.  The  previous 
reformation  had  been  in  the  beginning  of  Hezekiah's  reign, 
which  lasted  twenty-nine  years.  His  son  Manasseh  reigned 
fifty-five,  Amon  two,  and  young  Josiah,  who  ascended  the 
throne  at  eight,  may  be  allowed  to  have  attained  something 
near  his  majority  before  he  carried  out  his  work  of  reforma- 
tion. There  was  thus  very  nearly  a  century  between  the 
two  religious  revolutions,  time  enough  amid  all  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  the  Temple  for  that  book  of  the  law  to  have  been 
hidden  and  forgotten.  And  what,  if  it  did  not  exist,  nor 
any  other  recognised  code,  inspired  the  reformation  of 
Hezekiah  ?  but  such  a  disturbing  question  does  not  enter 
into  the  theories  of  the  critics. 

Josiah  was  the  last  King  of  Israel  who  had  any  claim  to 
greatness.  One  feeble  youth  after  another  of  his  sons 
succeeded  him,  while  the  disorganisation  of  Hebrew  society, 
the  weakness  and  wickedness  of  the  people,  grew  under  these 
inconsiderable  princes.  And  outside  the  walls  of  Jerusalem 
reigned  great  and  contending  forces  between  which  no  little 
kingdom  could  stand  :  the  Egyptians  in  whose  hands  one 
party  of  the  Hebrews  would  fain  have  placed  themselves,  in 
the  hope  of  escaping  the  other,  the  terrible  adversary  who 
came  from  the  north.  Anarchy  and  misery  arose  in  the 
devoted  city  where  no  man  knew  what  to  do,  and  least  of  all 
the  poor  puppets  of  kings,  one  succeeding  another,  struggling 
between  the  prophets  who  denounced,  and  the  princes  who 
overbore  and  treated  them  as  nonentities.  The  question  of 
entire  destruction,  in  the  face  of  an  adversary  so  strong,  and 
in  the  midst  of  such  divided  counsels,  and  a  structure  of 
society  so  entirely  rotten,  was,  of  course,  but  a  question  of 
time  ;  and  at  length  Judah  fell  crumbling  into  pieces  in  a 
complete  and   overwhelming  disaster  which  had  been   over 


CHAP.  V  THE  KINGS  OF  JUDAH  199 

and  over  again  foretold.  One  poor  young  king  was  carried 
off  to  Egypt,  another  to  Babylon  :  and  for  the  last  of  all  a 
still  more  dreadful  fate  was  reserved.  The  details  of  the 
catastrophe  are  so  much  more  closely  involved  in  the  story 
of  the  prophets,  and  more  fully  told,  that  we  postpone  them 
to  another  chapter.  It  is  enough  to  add  here  the  virtual 
conclusion  of  the  kingdom.  With  famine  in  the  streets  and 
every  way  of  escape  blockaded,  the  last  defenders  broke  out 
"of  the  gate  between  two  walls,  which  is  by  the  king's 
garden,"  probably  the  slopes  on  the  southern  side  under 
the  walls  of  the  Temple  enclosure,  at  one  end  of  which 
the  king's  palace  was — and  fled,  under  cover  of  the  night, 
towards  Jericho  and  the  desert,  leaving  the  deserted  city 
to  the  mercy  of  the  assailants.  They  were  soon,  however, 
overtaken,  dispersed,  and  destroyed,  and  Zedckiah,  the  last 
king  of  the  house  of  David,  was  dragged,  a  heart-broken 
prisoner,  in  the  final  train  of  the  captives  to  Babylon, 
whither  all  that  was  considerable  in  Jerusalem,  princes, 
officers  of  state,  priests  and  scribes,  and  wealthy  persons, 
had  already  been  despatched  in  melancholy  bands  at  the 
pleasure  of  the  victors.  When  they  got  as  far  as  Riblah, 
probably  coming  up  there  with  -the  victorious  army,  the  sons 
of  Zedckiah  were  murdered  before  his  eyes,  which  were 
thereafter  cruelly  put  out,  and  he  himself  carried  off  in 
chains  to  end  his  days  in  prison.  Thus  the  kingdom  of 
Judah  came  to  an  end. 

The  destruction  of  the  city  followed  with  a  dreadful 
completeness.  The  Temple,  so  often  assailed  and  raised  up 
again,  so  often  desecrated,  where  idols  had  been  worshipped 
instead  of  God,  and  every  kind  of  rebellion  against  the 
mission  and  purpose  of  the  race  had  been  carried  out,  was 
burned  to  the  ground.  "  The  house  of  the  Lord,  and  the 
king's  house,  and  every  great  man's  hou.se "  perished  one 
after  another  in  those  devouring  flames.  And  the  smoking 
ruins  were  left  under  high  heaven  when  the  noise  and  the 
tumult  of  the  great  army  and  its  prisoners  died  away,  a  few 
poor  inhabitants  only  lurking  in  those  houses  that  were  not 
worth   destroying.      These  miserable  remnants  of  the  popu- 


THE  HOUSE  OE  DA  VI D 


lation  would,  no  doubt,  steal  out  after  awhile  to  find  a  silent 
mass  of  burning  houses  and  dead  men  who  had  died  in 
their  defence — all  that  was  left  of  that  Jerusalem  which  they 
had  so  proudly  celebrated  in  songs  and  sacred  anthems  as 
the  joy  of  the  whole  earth. 


PART    II 
THE  PROPHETS 


CHAPTER  I 

ISAIAH 

It  is  understood  that  all  classes  of  critics,  those  who  believe 
and  receive  as  well  as  those  who  doubt  and  question,  have 
come  to  a  tolerably  general  decision  that  the  prophecies  of 
Isaiah  should  be  attributed  to  two  persons — one  the   Isaiah 
of  Hczekiah,  the  other  an  altogether  unknown,  nameless,  and 
untraceable  man.      I  have  made   no  use  of  this  hypothesis, 
because  it  seems  to  me  unnecessary.      It  is  of  course  difficult 
to  apply  the  ordinary  rules   of  literary  criticism  to  a  work 
which   is  only  known   in   a  translation  :   seeing  it  is  always 
possible  that  the  style  of   the  translators,   in   this  case  so 
admirable  and   homogeneous,  may  have  obliterated  the  dis- 
tinctions of  the  original.      The  restoration  and   return  from 
the  often-prophesied   captivity  is   indeed  more  clear  in  the 
late  chapters  ;    but  if  it   may  be  difficult  to  account  for  this 
and   for  the   introduction   of  Cyrus  by  name,  it  is  equally 
difficult  to  account  for  so  much  of  the  noblest  poetry  without 
a  name  :  when  even  such  scraps  of  verse  as  those  of  Nahum 
and  Obadiah  preserve  the  identity  of  their  writers.      For  my 
own  part   I   cannot  feel  that  it  matters  much.     Supposing 
that  there  was  a   poet   of  the  captivity  who  was  willing   to 
sink  his  own  fame  in  that  of  his  predecessor,  indifferent  even 
to  "  the   last  infirmity  of  noble  minds,"  he,  the  evangelical 
prophet,  as  he  has  been  called,  was  still  farther  off  from  the 
Man   of  Sorrows,  whom   he  has  described   in  such  sublime 
.strains,  than  the  original  Isaiah  was  from  Cyrus.     There  is 
no  difficulty  set  at  rest,  to  my  mind,  by  the  idea  that  there 


204  THE  PROPHETS 


were  two  : — but  neither  to  the  English  reader  nor  writer  is 
the  question  one  of  much  importance.  If  they  are  two,  the 
world  is  richer  by  an  example  of  such  humility  as  it  has 
never  known  before  or  since,  combined  with  a  splendour  of 
genius  and  inspiration  to  which  the  same  terms  may  almost 
be  applied. 

The  only  real  basis  of  probability  upon  which  the  con- 
jectures in  respect  to  Hezekiah's  age  as  the  first  literary  age 
of  Hebrew  history  seem  to  rest  is  the  fact  that  there  was  in 
his  days  a  remarkable  school  of  prophets — whether  associated 
together  or  arising  individually  we  have  no  way  of  knowing, 
— what  we  may  call  a  great  outburst  of  poetry,  and  of  poetry 
not  legendary  or  associated  with  the  feats  of  bygone  heroes 
as  primitive  poetry  is  in  every  language,  but  having  reached  a 
much  more  advanced  stage,  the  poetry  of  ode  and  elegy,  of 
eloquence  and  sentiment,  concerned  with  every  moral  theme 
that  can  stir  the  imagination  or  touch  the  heart.  The  love- 
drama,  the  deep  burden  of  philosophy,  the  never-ending 
human  discussion  of  the  ways  of  God  with  men,  arose  all  of 
them  in  this  wonderfully  gifted  race  before  they  were  either 
known  or  thought  of  by  any  other.  Those  silent  yet  wonder- 
ful words  which  are  writ  in  Egyptian  stones,  and  which 
have  made  the  thread  of  primitive  history  more  or  less  clear, 
are  all  tersely  historical,  the  memorials  of  reigns  and  con- 
quests,— but  the  literature  of  the  Hebrews  holds  everything 
that  has  ever  during  the  whole  history  of  the  world  been  put 
into  measured  and  orderly  words — the  lyrics,  the  oratory, 
the  morals,  the  thought,  with  an  Eastern  wealth  of  metaphor, 
with  a  strain  and  vehemence  of  passion,  with  a  music  and 
harmony  of  sound,  which  in  all  these  centuries  and  millen- 
niums have  never  been  surpassed.  The  literature  of  the 
Greeks  is  much  later,  but  yet  it  is  not  so  universal.  It  does 
not  touch  every  note  of  the  harp  as  does  that  of  the  Hebrews 
— and  strangely  enough  that  great  literature,  the  foundation 
of  all  modern  learning,  and  in  a  certain  sense  the  inspiration 
of  the  whole  world,  is  far  less  acquainted  with  the  secrets  of 
the  heart,  and  far  less  adapted  to  embody  all  aspirations  and 
sentiments,  than  that  of  the  Hebrews.      Socrates  is  great  but 


CHAP.  I  ISAIAH  205 

his  voice  is  not  that  of  the  race  of  mankind  as  is  Solomon's. 
Even  in  that  point  the  Greek  is  for  the  scholar,  the  Hebrew 
for  every  man.  The  systems  of  the  one  are  the  basis  of 
learning,  but  the  utterance  of  the  other  is  the  voice  of  the 
heart.  The  common  mind  which  would  be  plagued  beyond 
expression  by  the  philosopher  who  pursued  every  subject  to 
its  last  corner  of  refuge,  and  convicted  of  fallacy  every  received 
conclusion,  recognises  with  a  universal  sentiment  which 
takes  something  of  the  sting  from  that  dreadful  decision, 
that  all  is  vanity.  The  one  concerns  thought  alone,  the 
other  feeling.  Socrates  has  an  amused  satisfaction  in 
demolishing  every  stronghold  that  human  futility  has  built 
for  itself;  but  the  emptiness  of  all  human  satisfaction  is  as 
the  sigh  of  nature  breathing  from  every  soul.  Strange  to 
think  that  the  poet-nation  which  thus,  almost  before  any 
expression  of  emotion  was,  divined  and  gave  it  utterance, 
should  be  now — still  retaining  as  it  does  its  marked  and 
separate  conditions — so  voiceless,  so  unbeloved,  odious  to 
many,  the  object  of  admiration  and  enthusiasm  to  none. 
The  same  thing  has  happened  to  a  certain  degree  in 
respect  to  the  modern  Greek,  for  whom  the  most  devoted 
classicist  entertains  no  genial  weakness,  no  impulse  of  in- 
dulgence for  the  sake  of  his  forefathers — but  is  still  more 
strong  in  respect  to  that  strange  people  in  whose  words  we 
utter  our  deepest  emotions,  and  whom  in  most  cases  we 
repudiate  and  dislike.      The  effect  is  a  very  strange  one. 

The  great  outburst,  as  we  have  ventured  to  call  it,  of 
Hebrew  poetry  occurred  at  a  time  when  the  two  nations  of  the 
Jews  had  great  vicissitudes  of  power  and  of  downfall,  yet  as 
much  or  more  of  the  former  than  of  the  latter.  The  reign  of 
Uzziah  was  a  great  reign  until  the  disaster  of  the  conclusion 
which  was  rather  personal  to  the  king  than  affecting  the 
people.  And  the  reign  of  Hezekiah  was  also  a  great  reign, 
full  of  wealth  and  progress,  and  great  national  deliverances, 
besides  being,  if  the  opinion  of  the  critics  is  any  way  to 
be  considered,  a  sort  of  Augustan  age  of  literature.  The 
twenty  years  occupied  by  the  deplorable  reign  of  Ahaz  came 
between,  it  is  true,  justifying  any  kind  of  lamentation  and 


2o6  THE  PROPHETS 


presage  of  evil.  Yet  it  must  be  remembered  that  through- 
out this  whole  period,  at  its  highest  as  well  as  its  lowest 
fortune,  the  tenor  of  the  prophetic  utterances,  the  subject  of 
the  impassioned  poetical  addresses  which  the  poets  of  Judah 
and  Israel  poured  forth,  are  invariably  the  same  cry  against 
national  degradation  and  wickedness,  the  same  denunciation 
of  evil  to  come. 

Amos  is  the  first  of  these  great  instructors  and  powerful 
Protestants  against  the  sin  around  him.  His  prophecies 
were  chiefly  concerning  Israel  and  were  uttered  in  the  period 
during  which  Jeroboam  IL,  the  son  of  Joash,  reigned  in 
Samaria  and  Uzziah  in  Jerusalem,  the  two  reigns  being  con- 
temporary for  fourteen  years.  Thus  it  was  in  the  latter 
years  of  the  King  of  Israel,  a  great  prince  by  whom  according 
to  the  record  "  Israel  was  saved "  from  many  humiliations 
and  raised  to  prosperity :  and  in  the  early  part  of  the  reign 
of  Uzziah,  at  the  beginning  of  a  great,  prosperous,  and  as  yet 
unblemished  career,  that  his  prophecies  were  composed.  All 
was  well  with  the  two  kindred  nations  ;  over  them,  no  doubt, 
as  over  all  the  other  little  powers  in  Palestine  the  shadow  of 
the  great  Assyrian  empire  was  beginning  to  rise — but  for 
the  moment  Jeroboam  had  got  the  .upper  hand  of  Syria, 
which  up  to  this  time  had  been  the  strongest  of  Israel's 
enemies,  and  held  Damascus  captive.  Nothing  but  well- 
being  and  prosperity  seems  to  have  existed,  nothing  but 
auguries  of  good  fortune  to  come  would  seem  natural  in  the 
circumstances.  On  the  other  hand,  in  Judah  King  Uzziah 
was  no  idolater,  but,  till  the  presumptuous  idea  of  himself 
burning  incense  in  the  Temple  seized  him,  a  man  who  "  walked 
in  the  ways  of  his  father  David."  Even  his  transgression 
was  not  such  as  to  bring  down  national  retribution.  He 
was  stricken  in  his  own  person,  sadly  enough,  indeed,  but  not 
so  as  to  affect  his  people.  How  is  it,  then,  that  the  burden 
of  the  earliest  as  well  as  the  later  prophets  is  one  unbroken 
denunciation  of  trouble  to  come,  of  an  overwhelming  reign 
of  evil  among  the  people,  and  of  an  approaching  doom  which 
nothing  but  a  swift  and  immediate  change  of  national  habit 
and  life  could  turn  away  ?      But  it  is  wrong  to  say  that  it  is 


CHAP.  I  ISAIAH  207 

unbroken  —  there  is  an  alternative  to  the  picture: — while 
continually  repeating  that  immediate  deliverance  is  still 
possible,  if  those  who  are  exhorted  to  a  complete  change 
of  life  consent  to  the  course  pointed  out  to  them — it 
is  not  that  hope,  a  fallacious  and  unlikely  one,  as  the 
most  careless  reader  can  see,  upon  which  they  dwell  ;  it 
is  in  the  far-off  future  of  a  golden  age,  when  such  a  King  as 
earth  never  saw  was  to  spring  from  the  root  of  Jesse,  and 
the  whole  world,  covered  with  righteousness  as  the  waters 
cover  the  sea,  was  to  own  and  rejoice  in  his  sway.  In  this 
hope,  from  the  smallest  to  the  greatest  of  these  poets  and 
prophets,  every  one  is  agreed.  Was  it,  perhaps,  a  young 
Hezekiah,  a  young  Josiah,  of  whom  they  fondly  hoped  in  the 
first  place  that  he  might  be  the  deliverer?  but  if  so — and  in 
the  dim  yet  splendid  vision  that  rose  before  them,  the  lines 
were  all  indefinite,  and  who  could  refuse  to  hope  that  any 
noble  and  gracious  youth  might  unfold  into  that  promised 
prince  ? — there  is  no  insistence  upon  it,  no  affirmation,  nor 
even  anything  that  could  be  interpreted  into  an  assurance 
that  this  was  he.  They  had  every  inducement  that  men 
could  have  to  make  their  prophecies  agree  with  the  prognos- 
tics of  a  new  reign  :  but  they  never  did  so — nor  did  all  the 
prosperities  and  splendours  of  the  present  ever  draw  them 
from  their  painful  certainty  of  what  was  to  come. 

The  critics,  as  has  been  said,  have  found  it  necessary 
to  invent  a  second  Isaiah  to  account  for  the  prophecy 
concerning  Cyrus  which,  according  to  their  foregone  con- 
clusion, can  only  have  been  written  after  the  fact :  but  they 
do  not  explain  how  it  was  that  Amos,  of  whose  date  and 
authenticity  no  doubt  is  ever  expressed,  should  in  the 
middle  of  the  successful  reign  of  Jeroboam  have  prophesied 
not  only  the  entire  downfall  of  Israel,  but  the  captivity 
which  did  not  take  place  till  thirty  years  later,  and  which  at 
that  moment,  with  a  strong  monarch  full  of  conquest  and 
triumph  on  the  throne,  must  have  seemed  as  little  probable 
as  any  calamity  could  be.  It  was  not  without  an  indignant 
protest  that  these  denunciations  were  listened  to :  the 
priest  of  Bethel  made  a  stand  against  that  prophet  of  evil. 


2o8  THE  PROPHETS 


He  reported  to  Jeroboam  that  Amos  had  said  :  "  Israel 
shall  surely  be  led  away  captive  out  of  their  own  land." 
"  The  land  is  not  able  to  bear  his  words,"  said  that  un- 
questionable witness.  This  incident  is  the  fullest  proof  that 
the  prediction  was  made  at  a  most  unlikely  moment  when 
Israel  was  in  full  prosperity  under  her  powerful  monarch. 
"O  thou  seer,"  cries  the  disturbed  and  angry' priest,  "  flee 
thou  away  into  the  land  of  Judah,  and  there  eat  bread,  and 
prophesy  there  :  but  prophesy  not  again  any  more  at  Bethel, 
for  it  is  the  king's  chapel,  and  it  is  the  king's  court "  (or  the 
sanctuary  and  the  house  of  the  kingdom,  according  to  the 
marginal  correction  of  the  authorised  version).  "  I  was  no 
prophet,"  answers  Amos,  "  neither  was  I  a  prophet's  son.  I 
was  a  herdsman  and  a  gatherer  of  sycamore  fruit :  and  the 
Lord  took  me  as  I  followed  the  flocks,  and  the  Lord  said 
unto  me.  Go,  prophesy  unto  my  people  Israel."  The  same 
message  with  individual  modifications  is  conveyed  by  all  the 
prophets  of  the  day.  In  Micah  there  seems  a  hope,  his 
message  being  addressed  to  Israel  alone,  that  in  Judah  the 
people  of  God  might  find  shelter  and  peace  ;  but  the  prophets 
of  Judah  convey  the  same  tremendous  menace  to  their  half 
of  the  separated  nation. 

Captivity  and  desolation  when  they  were  at  the  height  of 
national  prosperity  and  success  !  their  territories  extended, 
new  acquisitions  made,  new  fortifications,  new  strength. 
Uzziah  has  cunning  engines  mounted  upon  his  new  towers, 
Hezekiah  makes  still  more  elaborate  preparations  for  defence  ; 
and  both  these  monarchs  extend  their  borders,  and  increase 
their  wealth.  But  through  all  the  busy,  rich,  and  gay  city 
peals  the  same  cry  of  alarm — captivity  !  something  more 
terrible  than  defeat  or  that  adverse  fortune  which  they  have 
met  like  their  neighbours  for  hundreds  of  years,  now  beaten 
down,  now  rising  up,  in  the  vicissitudes  of  war,  and  that  per- 
petual life  of  conflict  which  is  natural  to  a  small  kingdom 
surrounded  by  ambitious  and  warlike  neighbours.  From 
Solomon's  days  there  had  been,  perhaps,  no  king  so  hopeful, 
so  powerful,  as  Uzziah,  and  no  reformer  so  happy,  with  so 
much  reason   to  look   for  assured  comfort  and  wellbeing,  as 


CHAP.  I  ISAIAH  209 

Hezekiah.  Assyria  had  not  even  arisen  in  the  days  of  the 
first  monarch  to  make  Palestine  tremble  ;  yet  even  in  Judah 
was  the  trumpet  of  coming  disaster  sounded,  "  The  cities 
shall  be  wasted  without  inhabitant,  and  the  houses  without 
man,  and  the  land  be  utterly  desolate." 

Who  could  wonder  if  this  terrible  prophecy  was  as 
madness  in  the  ears  of  the  prosperous  and  powerful  Hebrews, 
"  in  the  year  when  King  Uzziah  died  "  ?  The  city  was  full 
of  comfort  and  enjoyment,  festivity  and  national  well- 
being.  Tribute  and  quit-rent  came  flowing  in,  luxury  had 
found  a  place  in  many  homes,  no  city  of  Palestine  was 
more  forward  in  the  march  of  civilisation,  more  advanced 
in  fashion,  more  likely  to  take  the  lead  among  the  surround- 
ing nations.  Captivity,  desolation,  cities  without  inhabitants, 
without  a  man  left,  the  forlorn  women  clinging  to  any  de- 
fender they  could  find,  imploring  to  have  the  protection  of 
his  name — what  did  the  madman  mean  ?  Were  these  follies 
of  weight  enough  to  disturb  a  single  banquet,  to  make  either 
prince  or  moneylender  pause  ?  The  populace,  always 
ready  to  entertain  any  grumbler,  might  listen  with  that 
satisfied  thrill  of  excitement  with  which  it  hears  every- 
where its  superiors  threatened  : — but  who  would  give  up  a 
dinner,  who  would  sacrifice  an  advantage,  who  would  restore 
a  pledge,  for  anything  these  wild  fellows  might  choose  to 
say  ?  The  Cassandras  of  fate  are  comprehensible  enough 
when  the  downward  course  has  visibly  begun,  and  the  enemy 
is  at  the  gates  ;  but  he  who  threatens  thunder  out  of  a  clear 
sky  is  less  intelligible.  In  Isaiah's  time  there  were  even 
special  signs  of  God's  favour,  troubles  averted,  deliverances 
given,  yet  without  any  cessation  of  the  warning.  Nay,  there 
were  all  the  signs  of  outward  piety  in  one  portion  of  Isaiah's 
time.  There  were  continual  sacrifices,  offerings  at  the  altar, 
a  great  religious  system  carefully  carried  on — yet  still  the 
same  cry.  The  prophets  unfold  to  us  the  state  of  morals 
and  manners  which  existed  in  both  the  fated  kingdoms  with 
a  sternness  of  censure  which,  no  doubt,  to  their  contemporaries, 
seemed  exaggerated,  such  a  trenchant  "  criticism  of  life  "  as 
even  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  could  not  have  dreamed. 

r 


THE  PROPHETS 


It  should  always  be  remembered,  however,  that  the 
utterances  of  Hebrew  prophets  and  preachers  were  not 
addressed  to  individuals  but  to  the  nation.  The  absence 
of  all  reference  to  after  rewards  and  punishments  and  the 
compensations  of  another  life,  remarkable  as  it  is,  would  be 
more  remarkable  still  were  these  utterances  recorded  for  the 
comfort  of  the  immediate  sufferer,  the  support  of  the  troubled 
individual,  as  in  Gospel  times.  Christianity  does  emphatic- 
ally address  the  individual,  but  in  the  Jewish  dispensation 
it  was  not  so.  It  is  the  fate  of  the  nation  which  is  always 
the  subject  of  the  prophet.  The  poor  man  whom  our  Lord 
adjured  with  heavenly  tenderness  to  "  take  my  yoke  upon 
you,  and  learn  of  me  "  is,  not  contemplated  by  the  seer  who 
flings  abroad  with  the  vehemence  of  passion  his  addresses  to 
his  race.  Israel  had  been  set  as  a  wonder  in  the  earth, 
Judah  as  a  sign  to  all  nations,  and  they  had  disregarded, 
scorned,  and  departed  from  their  mission.  Not  even  the 
address  "  Rejoice,  O  young  man,  in  thy  youth  "  of  Solomon 
is  in  the  thoughts  of  Amos  or  Isaiah.  To  them,  too,  per- 
haps, as  to  Elijah  in  his  despair,  it  may  have  been  communi- 
cated that  there  yet  remained  seven  thousand  men  in  Israel 
who  had  not  bowed  the  knee  to  Baal.  These  faithful  ones 
were  in  God's  own  hand,  in  the  secret  of  His  heavenly 
consolations.  Whatever  might  happen  to  them,  it  was  well 
with  them — whatever  might  happen  to  the  others  individually, 
was  also  the  secret  of  God  and  in  His  hand.  But  it  is  to 
the  nation  that  the  prophet's  message  is  addressed,  that 
nation  which  had  been  set  up  as  a  witness  and  had  forgotten 
and  abjured  its  testimony.  Its  special  existence  depended 
altogether  upon  its  fulfilment  of  that  trust.  Its  national  life 
was  an  office,  a  service.  From  time  to  time  fitfully  that 
office  had  been  filled  and  that  service  performed  more  or 
less  well — now  with  enthusiasm  so  that  all  the  world  might 
see — now  languidly  with  doubtful  arms  and  swaying  banners. 
And  anon  the  standard  of  the  Lord  had  been  precipitated 
into  the  dust  and  the  mission  of  Israel  had  been  forgotten. 
This  it  was  which  was  the  object  of  the  prophets,  the  burden 
of  every  message.      A  country,  a  nation,  has   no  hereafter  ; 


CHAP.   I  ISAIAH  211 

its  duties  are  to  be  accomplished  now  and  here,  its  rewards 
or  punishments  awarded  in  this  world — and  such  is  the  only 
thought  in  the  prophet's  mind.  He  lays  bare  the  corruption 
of  the  nation  with  an  unsparing  hand.  The  king  is  a  good 
king  ;  he  has  made  reformation,  he  has  walked  in  the  ways 
of  his  father  David — for  him  and  for  his  day  there  will  be 
a  postponement,  an  arrest  of  justice ;  but  the  nation  is 
corrupt  and  condemned,  and  has  abandoned  and  become 
incapable  of  performing  its  great  mission.  The  experiment 
which  has  been  tried  in  the  face  of  all  nations  has  failed. 
"  Israel  will  not  know,  my  people  will  not  consider."  One 
last  outcry  of  warning,  the  greatest,  the  most  continuous 
ever  made,  for  a  time  filling  the  very  air  with  its  manifold 
voice  giving  the  echoes  no  rest,  is  to  complete  the  record 
of  God's  ceaseless  endeavours  to  induce  His  chosen  people 
to  fulfil  their  office — but  that  like  every  other  is  to  be  in 
vain. 

I  do  not  doubt  that  the  very  humblest  thinker  forms 
some  theory  to  himself,  for  the  most  part  in  silence,  un- 
expressed— myriads  who  have  no  words  in  which  to  set  forth 
their  thoughts  justifying  or  accusing  the  great  Ruler  of  the 
world  according  to  their  different  imperfect  reasonings  upon 
what  they  see  and  what  they  cannot  see.  Among  these 
humble  hosts  without  authority,  whose  musings  are  incom- 
plete and  their  conclusions  framed  without  any  thought  of 
scientific  accuracy,  I  may  venture  to  put  forth  my  convic- 
tion that  the  freedom  of  the  human  will  is  so  complete  that 
God  will  force  no  one,  neither  individual  neither  nation,  into 
the  right  way.  With  the  strongest  belief  that  this  world 
contains  but  a  portion  of  our  existence,  that  it  may  be  for 
aught  we  know  a  great  parable  and  lesson  for  the  myriads 
of  other  worlds  which  we  know  to  be  around  us  in  space  : 
and  without  any  attempt  to  enter  upon  that  bewildering 
certainty  that  the  result  of  every  man's  decision  must  be 
known  beforehand  and  from  all  eternity,  by  the  God  to 
whom  a  thousand  years  arc  as  one  day,  I  believe  that  in  no 
way  will  the  Creator  force  the  steps  of  His  creatures.  What 
to   the   simplest   apprehension    is   compulsory  goodness  ?    a 


THE  PKOrHETS 


thing  without  merit,  if  not  a  mere  hypocrisy  which  is  the 
most  common  though  unjust  view — but  always,  at  least,  a 
thing  suspect,  satisfactory  to  no  man.  Against  this,  which 
is  the  very  prerogative  and  privilege  of  humanity,  the 
theorist,  and  often  the  most  lovable  of  theorists,  gnashes  his 
teeth,  in  many  cases  taking  it  as  a  reason  for  denying  God 
altogether.  Can  a  great  and  pure  and  loving  Being  exist, 
and  permit  the  crimes  and  miseries  that  devastate  the  earth  ? 
they  cry  with  passion,  and  so  great  a  show  of  tenderness 
superior  to  that  of  God,  and  mercy  above  that  of  the  All- 
merciful,  that  many  tongues  are  silenced — and  it  is  perhaps 
the  most  popular  of  all  atheistical  arguments.  What,  then, 
do  these  indignant  critics  demand  ?  a  race  cut  to  conformity 
with  the  model  of  goodness,  a  man  in  leading  strings  so  that 
he  cannot  err  ? — and  of  what  good,  then,  of  what  meaning 
would  be  his  virtue  ?  The  God  of  Israel,  the  God  of 
Christianity,  that  most  perfect  of  all  the  conceptions  of 
men  of  the  one  Being  who  is  inexplainable  and  incompre- 
hensible, yet  is  always  more  or  less  understood  by  the  heart, 
lays  the  case  very  plainly  before  every  one  of  His  creatures. 
To  the  lowest  intelligence,  as  to  the  highest,  there  is  a 
standard,  a  line  which  divides  between  good  and  evil.  There 
are  a  hundred  arguments  on  either  side,  and  the  case  has 
been  gone  over  and  over  again  since  the  beginning  of  the 
world  in  every  generation  under  all  circumstances.  And 
many* a  breaking  heart  has  cried  and  implored  in  every  age 
for  the 'one  thing  that  cannot  be  granted,  that  God  would 
force  child  or  friend  or  husband  or  wife  into  that  right  way, 
would  annihilate  the  perverse  will,  and  destroy  the  dis- 
obedient instincts,  and  make  men  good  who  have  no  desire 
to  be  good.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  is  the  everlasting  No 
of  which  the  philosopher  writes.  God,  who  has  such  pity 
as  a  father  hath,  supplies  every  argument,  every  inducement, 
that  can  affect  a  thinking  and  loving  being  ;  but  He  will 
not  take  away  that  power  of  choice  which  is  the  man's  dis- 
tinction in  the  universe,  nor  force  the  soul  to  obey  Him. 
The  mortal  father  follows  humbly,  without  knowing  it,  in 
pain   and   sorrow,  this   same  sole  practice.      With  man  it  is 


CHAP.  I  ISAIAH  213 

dictated  indeed  by  the  force  of  things,  by  the  impossibih'ty 
of  confipelling  another  mind  into  any  way  which  it  does  not 
itself  choose  ;  but  with  God  I  venture  to  beh'cve  it  is  the  great 
secret  which  explains  all  that  is  inexplainable.  The  way 
is  clear,  be  it  to  the  savage,  be  it  to  the  sage : — the  infinite 
Pity  watches  over  all  and  in  many  a  silent  moment  enforces 
unseen  the  open  lesson — but  leaves  in  this  world  the  inalien- 
able liberty  which  men  have  as  men :  to  be  exchanged,  let  us 
hope,  in  another  sphere,  for  that  soft  irresistible  constraining 
which  the  love  of  Christ  exercises  even  in  this  life,  and  which 
there  may  be,  we  trust,  the  universal  rule. 

This  is  a  digression,  and  the  expression  of  an  individual 
thought.  But  as  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  forming  individual 
theories  upon  matters  which  concern  us  all  so  deeply,  I  hope 
the  reader  will  pardon  the  momentary  departure  from  our 
immediate  subject.  On  these  lines,  at  least,  the  great  par- 
able of  the  Jewish  history  was  carried  out.  Their  mission 
was  set  very  clearly  before  them,  the  highest  honour  conceiv- 
able for  a  nation  :  their  law,  so  stern  in  rectitude,  yet 
accompanied  with  such  wonderful  shadings  of  charity  and 
kindness,  was  given  to  them  centuries  before  any  such  code 
was  known  in  any  other  race  (and  this  on  the  showing  of  the 
most  determined  critics,  who  impute  a  system  of  wholesale 
imposition  to  the  leaders  of  the  tribes,  yet  cannot  deny 
the  antiquity  of  certain  fragments,  and  these  the  most 
essential)  :  and  that  well-spring  of  poetry  which  was  their 
privilege  and  distinction,  entirely  inspired  by  religious  themes 
and  motives,  sprang  up  in  their  midst  with  extraordinary 
fulness  before  the  most  ancient  ballad  or  list  of  names  is 
recorded  of  any  other  people,  with  the  exception  of  the 
hieroglyphics  of  Egypt.  In  all  these  ways  did  God  en- 
deavour to  persuade  that  people  to  fulfil  its  mission.  But 
the  resistance  of  an  unsubdued  human  will,  and  the  lower 
inducements  which  had  more  force  upon  them  than  the 
higher,  and,  perhaps,  even  that  weakness  of  human  nature  to 
which  a  lofty  strain  of  purpose  is  always  exhausting,  over- 
came every  better  impulse.  The  Hebrews  seem  to  have 
asked  them.selves  from  the  beginning  of  their  national  career 


214  THE  PROPHETS 


why  they  should  have  been  chosen,  and  why  they  should 
be  bound  to  follow  that  higher  purpose  :  why  they  should 
be  different  from  other  men,  why  they  should  not  eat 
and  drink  and  content  themselves  with  the  common  course, 
the  feasts  and  license  of  their  neighbours.  Perhaps  there 
were  some  who  thought  such  an  assumption  of  superiority 
arrogant  and  intolerable,  who  preferred  to  share  the  lot  of 
those  about  them  to  whom  their  purer  creed  would  seem  a 
standing  reproach.  To  take  their  chance  with  their  neigh- 
bours instead  of  assuming  airs  of  sanctity, — might  not  that  be 
a  thought  not  ungenerous,  attractive,  indeed,  as  more  magna- 
nimous than  any  self-salvation  to  many  minds  ?  and  the 
always  powerful  current  of  custom  round,  and  the  shallow^ 
poetry  of  an  Astarte  and  Baal  more  cognate  to  the  multitude 
than  the  Diviner  strains,  recommended  by  aboriginal  wives 
and  mothers,  and  by  constant  sight  and  association,  must 
have  appealed  to  all  the  lighter  impulses  of  the  soul.  The 
charm  of  idol-worship  is  one  which  the  modern  mind  is  quite 
incapable  of  understanding  ;  yet  it  is  evident  that  it  must 
have  been  great ;  and  the  Hebrews  were  alone  in  that  wor- 
ship which  forbade  any  graven  image,  and  tasked  the  powers 
of  the  mind  to  imagine  a  great  Spirit  everywhere  expanded, 
yet  nowhere  seen,  who  demanded  not  external  rites  so  much 
as  righteousness  and  truth,  and  held  out  no  reward  of 
pleasure,  but  denounced  and  denied  the  gratification  of  the 
senses  as  evil  and  not  good. 

This  role  in  the  world  was  too  high  for  the  race  ;  and 
yet  it  pleased  their  pride  to  dally  with  it  to  be  thus  dis- 
tinguished among  other  men  ;  and  they  would  seem  to  have 
had  a  certain  superstitious  reliance  upon  the  protection  of  a 
God  who,  for  His  own  credit,  so  to  speak,  would  not  allow 
them  to  be  overcome,  even  while  they  rejected  every  bond  of 
duty  towards  Him.  It  is  to  this  people  that  the  prophets 
address  all  their  entreaties  and  warnings.  Theirs  is  no 
individual  appeal  calling  upon  every  man  to  repent.  The 
threatenings  of  Divine  justice  are  for  the  nation,  for  which 
there  is  no  future  retribution,  which  has  to  accomplish  its 
warfare   as    a   nation   upon    the    earth,  and    to  undergo  the 


CHAP.  I  ISAIAH  215 

recompense  of  final  national  apostasy,  the  penalty  of  national 
destruction.  I  do  not  say  that  the  absence  of  all  but  strong 
inference — such  a  cry  as  "Whom  have  I  in  heaven  but 
Thee  ?  "  the  cry  still  of  the  most  devout  spirit — of  the  world 
beyond  the  grave  is  not  remarkable  throughout  the  Old 
Testament :  but  that  in  the  impassioned  utterances  of  the 
prophets  it  would  be  inappropriate  and  is  not  to  be  looked 
for,  since  it  is  the  corporate  body  to  which  all  their  remon- 
strances and  menaces  are  addressed,  the  Jewish  nation,  in  its 
general  system  and  economy,  an  economy  essentially  mortal 
and  earthly,  made  to  run  its  course  in  the  world  as  a  system, 
of  which  there  was  no  promise  nor  any  indication  that  it 
could  ever  be  transferred  to  another  state  of  being. 

The  state  of  Hebrew  society  is  made  clear  to  us,  within 
the  formulas  of  the  national  history,  by  this  succession  of 
great  poets.  How  the  foundations  of  primitive  law,  the  im- 
memorial commands  of  Divine  charity,  were  broken,  and  that 
which  was  to  be  the  reproach  of  the  Jew  through  all  ages 
begun,  is  already  one  of  the  first  things  revealed  to  us. 
"  They  lay  themselves  down  upon  clothes  laid  to  pledge." 
What  more  curious  description  could  be  made  of  the  race 
which  is  the  moneylender  of  all  humanity,  the  pawnbroker 
of  all  the  ages?  It  had  not  been  denied  to  the  primitive 
Hebrew  to  exercise  this  all-congenial  trade.  He  had  been 
allowed  to  accept  the  garment  in  pledge,  the  upper  cloak 
which  a  man  did  not  require  at  his  work,  for  the  day  during 
which  he  was  working :  and,  no  doubt,  it  was  implied  if  not 
absolutely  expressed  that  the  borrower  should  pay  out  of  his 
day's  wages  the  sum  lent  and  reclaim  his  garment.  But  in 
no  case  was  it  allowed  by  the  law,  payment  or  no  payment, 
that  the  pledge  should  be  retained.  The  garment  was  not 
only  the  completion  of  the  workman's  attire  by  day,  but  it 
was  his  covering  by  night  ;  and  the  commandment  is  as 
express  and  distinct  as  "  Thou  shalt  not  .steal  "  that  it  should 
be  restored  to  him.  "  If  thou  at  all  take  thy  neighbour's 
raiment  to  pledge,  thou  shalt  deliver  it  unto  him  by  that  the 
sun  goeth  down  :  for  that  is  his  covering  only,  it  is  his  rai- 
ment for  his  skin  :  wherein  shall  he  sleep  ?  "     The  Shylock 


2i6  THE  PROPHETS 


of  modern  history  has  put  this  charge  far  out  of  his  ken,  and 
so  had  the  Hebrew  of  the  days  of  the  last  Jeroboam.  They 
lay  down  upon  clothes  laid  to  pledge — what  we  call  now  the 
Arab  cloak,  which  is  his  house,  his  cover  from  the  scorching 
sun,  his  bed  and  blanket  in  which  he  still  lies  down  secure 
under  any  tent  or  tree  wherever  it  may  chance  to  him  to  pass 
the  night.  The  poor  man,  unable  to  bring  his  penny  of 
redemption,  must  have  shivered  in  the  night  air  in  his  Hght 
tunic  while  the  traditionary  Jew,  the  impersonation  of  the 
usurer,  stretched  himself  in  the  most  primitive  form  of 
warehousing,  on  the  coverings  of  his  debtors — the  cruellest 
form  of  pawnbroking.  The  next  item  in  the  indictment 
follows  closely  upon  this.  "  They  sold  the  righteous  for  silver, 
and  the  poor  for  a  pair  of  shoes."  What  but  bondage  and 
slavery  remained  for  the  unfortunate  from  whom  his  all  was 
thus  taken  ?  Bondage,  too,  was  permitted  in  such  a  case, 
that  a  man  should  work  out  his  debt,  but  not  that  he  should 
be  sold  by  his  countrymen,  his  kinsmen.  Thus  one  of  the 
greatest  offences  of  the  race,  an  organised  and  systematic 
breach  of  the  law,  is  denounced  by  Amos.  The  Hebrew 
instinct  had  been  foreseen  and  guarded  against  in  that  law 
with  its  special  and  strict  enactments  ;  but  here  it  appears  in 
full  and  flagrant  operation,  open  to  the  eye  of  day. 

Such  an  example  has  a  more  picturesque  and  convincing 
effect  than  the  more  general  condemnations  of  oppression, 
of  misprision  of  justice,  of  the  taking  of  bribes,  and  the 
falsification  of  judgment,  all  of  which  the  prophets  declare  to 
be  common  in  Israel  as  is  the  idolatry  which  is  the  cause  of 
all.  It  would  seem,  however,  in  the  midst  both  of  idolatry 
and  law-breaking,  that  the  Israelites  continued  to  give  a 
certain  worship  to  God  in  conjunction  with  their  idols  :  for 
the  prophet  indignantly  exclaims  against  the  meat  offerings 
and  burnt  offerings  which  God  will  not  accept,  which  were 
offered  to  him  in  shameful  combination  with  the  offerings 
made  to  Jeroboam's  calves  at  Gilgal,  and  to  the  other  false 
gods  after  whom  Israel  had  gone.  Not  this  impulse  of 
superstition  and  terror,  but  judgment  and  righteousness, 
is   what  God   requires  of  them  :    that  they  should  "  hate  the 


CHAP.  I  ISAIAH  217 

evil,   and   love    the  good,   and    establish    judgment    in    the 
gate." 

Not  less  striking  is  the  picture  of  a  dissolute  and  corrupt 
society,  which  the  prophet  finds  indifferently  in  both  the 
capitals,  Samaria  and  Jerusalem.  "  Ye  that  put  far  away 
the  evil  day,  and  cause  the  seat  of  violence  to  come  near  ; 
that  lie  upon  beds  of  ivory,  and  stretch  themselves  upon 
their  couches,  and  eat  the  lambs  out  of  the  flock,  and  the 
calves  out  of  the  midst  of  the  stall ;  that  chant  (or  quaver, 
a  significant  correction,  and  one  which  throws  a  certain  light 
upon  the  primitive  music  of  the  time)  to  the  sound  of  the 
viol,  and  invent  to  themselves  instruments  of  musick,  like 
David  ;  that  drink  wine  in  bowls,  and  anoint  themselves 
with  the  chief  ointments."  Curiously  enough,  this  imputa- 
tion of  luxury  and  self-indulgence,  especially  in  wine,  is 
repeated  in  almost  all  these  terrible  and  vivid  pictures  of 
evil.  "  Woe  unto  them  that  rise  up  early  in  the  morning, 
that  they  may  follow  strong  drink  ;  that  continue  till  night 
till  wine  inflame  them ! "  says  Isaiah.  It  is  an  unlikely 
reproach  for  the  sober  East,  but  it  is  so  often  repeated  that 
it  must  point  to  a  fatal  weakness  of  the  time.  "  Mighty  to 
drink  wine,  and  men  of  strength  to  mingle  strong  drink," 
says  another  passage.  "  Which  justify  the  wicked  for  money, 
and  take  away  the  righteousness  of  the  righteous  ! "  A 
society  depraved  and  corrupt,  in  which  that  craving  for 
money  to  supply  their  luxuries  which  is  so  constant  a  feature 
of  a  falling  state,  leads  to  every  kind  of  injustice  and  oppres- 
sion :  where  the  cause  of  the  weak  is  unsafe,  peculation  in 
every  public  office,  the  very  hand  of  the  judge  not  clean  : 
where  ostentation  and  luxury  prevail,  the  women's  special 
prodigality  of  dress  calling  forth  an  indignant  protest  as  in 
all  other  primitive  indictments,  the  men's  indolent  effeminacy, 
their  vacant  lives,  and  pursuit  of  pleasure  reckless  and  bound- 
less, filling  in  the  details  of  the  picture.  Cruelty  and  oppres- 
sion appear  on  all  sides,  exactions  of  all  kinds,  extravagance 
and  self-indulgence,  the  prophets  prophesying  falsely  and  the 
people  loving  to  have  it  so :  the  courts  of  law  dcba.sed,  the 
lender   turned    into    a   usurer,    the    debtor   threatened    with 


2i8  THE  rROPHETS 


slavery,  a  society  altogether  disorganised,  without  efifective 
authority,  without  rule,  pervaded  by  license  and  a  slacken- 
ing of  all  bonds. 

But  in  its  very  depravity  and  corruption  what  a  picture 
of  supposed  security  is  here !  There  are  no  gatherings  for 
defence,  no  attempts  to  rouse  the  ancient  spirit.  The  picture 
is  like  that  of  the  depraved  Romans  in  the  last  stage  of 
the  empire,  or  of  Sardanapalus  in  his  court.  The  princes 
stretched  out  upon  their  couches,  at  their'  long-drawn-out 
luxurious  repasts,  with  all  the  foreign  affectations  that  have 
come  to  them  from  Egypt  or  from  among  the  millionaires 
of  Tyre  :  touching  a  careless  viol,  quavering  a  song  of  loves : 
keeping  all  straight  with  heaven  perhaps  by  a  hecatomb  of 
burnt  offering  at  which  they  would  assemble  their  friends  to 
eat  a  morsel  of  the  sacrifice,  and  propitiate  the  God  who 
could  be  so  easily  kept  in  good  humour  by  the  smoke 
that  offended  their  dainty  nostrils  : — then  straying  forth  by 
Solomon's  beautiful  gate,  where  perhaps  their  mules,  or  the 
fine-limbed  desert  horses,  which  were  the  last  word  of  Hebrew 
luxury,  waited  at  the  gate,  to  take  them  across  the  valley  in 
a  party  of  mingled  pleasure  and  devotion,  and  up  the  slope 
of  Olivet  to  some  favourite  grove,  where  half  clandestine, 
half  recognised,  the  gayer  rites  of  another  worship  were 
performed.  Nothing  like  being  on  the  safe  side,  one  can 
imagine  the  cynic  nobles  saying,  as  they  came  back  to 
envelop  themselves  in  their  silken  robes,  and  lay  them- 
selves upon  their  sculptured  couches  with  all  the  fine  work 
of  ivory  and  gilding  : — while  steward  and  intendant  outside 
ground  every  farthing  that  could  be  got  out  of  the  misery 
of  the  needy,  out  of  the  prodigal's  greedy  want  and  the 
shivering  poor  man  who  had  given  his  cloak  for  the  pleasure 
of  a  rude  debauch. 

Was  this  Israel,  was  this  Judah,  the  chosen  of  the  Lord  ? 
— was  this  the  hill  of  Zion  so  often  re-consecrated  to  God 
where  the  solemn  processions  had  passed  but  now  celebrating 
a  renewed  covenant  ?  The  prophets  cry  their  accusations 
aloud  in  every  market-place,  at  every  gate,  while  still  these 
songs  of  sacred  joy  have  scarcely  died  out  of  the  echoes.    The 


CHAP.   I  ISAIAH  221 

mission  of  Amos  was  accomplished  in  two  brilliant  reigns, 
that  of  Jeroboam  II.  and  that  of  Uzziah.  And  the 
Assyrian  was  not  yet  known  in  his  day.  And  yet  his 
burden  is  captivity,  captivity !  not  punishment  or  calamity 
alone,  which  came  from  time  to  time  in  the  shape  of  the  all- 
devouring  locust,  God's  army,  or  in  tempests  and  convulsions 
of  nature:  but  destruction  complete  and  hopeless,  the  carrying 
away  into  a  strange  country,  the  loss  of  name  and  fame  as 
an  independent  nation.  What  wonder  that  the  land  could 
not  bear  his  words?  What  did  he  mean,  this  herdsman  in 
his  sheepskin,  with  his  wild  looks  and  fiery  eyes  ?  Captivity  ! 
when  all  was  well  in  Israel  :  when  Damascus  had  been 
brought  under  tribute  and  all  the  north  :  when  the  kingdom 
was  stronger  than  it  had  been  for  generations,  enriched  by 
all  the  wealth  of  the  cornfields  of  Esdraelon,  the  fisheries  of 
Galilee,  the  little  ports  upon  the  margin  of  the  great  sea. 
Yet  for  all  this  "  Israel  shall  be  captive  in  a  strange  land." 
When  he  was  hunted  forth  across  the  border  into  Judah, 
even  then  his  voice  was  not  silenced.  And  that  promise  to 
bring  back  again  the  captivity  of  Israel,  what  did  it  mean  ? 
and  to  build  again  the  tabernacle  of  David  upon  which  no 
one  had  attempted  to  lift  up  a  profane  hand  ? 

It  was  more  natural  that  during  the  reign  of  Ahaz,  when 
everything  was  overturned  and  the  king  himself  profaned 
the  altar  and  closed  the  Temple,  these  cries  of  warning  should 
resound  over  the  land.  But  Hezekiah  and  his  reforma- 
tions seemed  scarcely  to  have  silenced  for  a  moment  the 
melancholy  predictions  of  evil  to  come.  Isaiah  was  a  man 
who  had  seen  many  changes  in  Israel.  The  ecstatic  trance 
in  which  he  saw  the  Lord  sitting  on  his  throne,  and  that 
mystic  and  splendid  vision  of  the  seraphs  and  their  six 
wings,  "  with  twain  he  covered  his  face,  and  with  twain  he 
covered  his  feet,  and  with  twain  he  did  fly"  (which  I  have  heard 
a  physiologist  explain  as  in  accordance  with  the  structure  of 
the  human  body  and  capable  of  being  realised  in  it  in  some 
future  purification  of  form,  a  devout  imagination  with  which 
the  old  doctor  pleased  his  fancy),  happened  in  the  year  in 
which  King  Uzziah  died.     Jotham  reigned  sixteen  years  and 


THE  PROPHETS 


his  son  Ahaz  sixteen,  so  that  when  the  reign  and  the  reforma- 
tion of  Hezekiah  their  son  and  grandson  came,  the  prophet 
must  have  been  at  least  beyond  his  prime.  He  had  seen 
the  most  wonderful  revolutions  in  Jerusalem.  He  had  seen 
conquest  and  triumph,  the  wealth  of  captured  cities  carried 
across  the  great  bridge  to  be  laid  up  in  the  house  of  the 
Lord  :  and  anon  a  rage  of  destruction  in  that  sacred  place, 
the  spoils  carried  away,  the  golden  lining  stripped  from  the 
walls,  the  Temple  left  desolate.  And  then  the  whirligig  of 
time  had  turned  and  he  had  beheld  the  restoration,  the 
re-dedication,  a  reverent  bringing  back  of  still  greater  glory. 
He  had  seen  siege  after  siege,  the  humiliation  of  the  city  before 
the  power  of  Damascus,  its  conquest  by  the  King  of  Israel, 
thousands  of  captives  dragged  from  their  homes,  but  coming 
back  again  in  the  sudden  compunction  of  the  conquerors 
moved  by  old  brotherhood  and  kindness,  notwithstanding  the 
severance  and  enmity  of  years.  The  mind  of  the  prophet 
must  have  been  in  itself  a  chronicle  full  of  the  vicissitudes 
of  national  life. 

And  he  was  one  of  the  greatest  poets  that  had  arisen  in 
Israel,  a  man  full  of  high  genius  and  the  noblest  powers. 
Between  him  and  David  there  had  arisen  no  such  exquisite 
voice  of  song,  no  such  large  and  splendid  inspiration.  Fire 
from  the  altar  had  touched  his  lips.  If  any  man  was  capable 
of  beholding  the  seraphim  and  even  the  glory  of  the  Lord 
upon  his  throne,  this  was  the  man.  In  his  great  poem  or  col- 
lection of  poems  there  is  no  monotony  of  denunciation.  His 
harp  has  many  strings.  The  most  triumphant  measure  as 
well  as  the  saddest  is  congenial  to  his  great  voice.  He  is 
capable  of  the  irony  of  the  satirist  and  the  sweetness  of  the 
pastoral :  he  has  forestalled  Dante  and  given  to  Milton  a 
keynote  beyond  that  great  poet's  compass.  The  hell  of  his 
vision  is  more  grand  than  that  of  the  Florentine,  his  heaven 
far  more  splendid  than  that  of  the  English  poet :  his  song 
falls  from  the  height  of  sombre  grandeur  to  that 

Sound  as  of  a  hidden  brook 
In  the  leafy  month  of  June, 

which   Coleridge  has    described    and    exemplified   as  one  of 


CHAP.  I  ISAIAH  223 

the  most  exquisite  expedients  of  poetic  art — but  not  with 
such  grace  and  sweetness  as  Isaiah.  The  portrait  of  the 
falling  race,  so  true  to  many  a  last  stage  of  empire  since, 
is  not  more  clear  in  those  dark  lines  of  woe  and  misery  than 
is  the  triumphant  vision  of  a  time  to  come,  in  which  all  that 
is  joyful  shall  return  under  the  reign  of  the  Prince  of 
Peace,  the  root  and  the  offspring  of  David,  the  King  whose 
name  is  Wonderful.  He  turns  from  one  scene  to  another 
with  the  freshness  of  a  noble  faculty  to  which  monotony  is 
impossible,  which  from  the  depths  of  humiliation  bursts 
glorious  into  the  deliverance  to  come,  and  cannot  be  confined 
to  one  note.  In  his  early  years  he  is  like  the  wild  Ezekiel 
among  the  miserable  exodus  of  the  captivity,  a  sort  of 
natural  sign  and  parable  to  the  people,  he  and  his  wife  "  the 
prophetess  "  and  his  children  :  but  in  his  elder  age  he  is  the 
king's  counsellor,  a  distinguished  member  of  Jewish  society, 
the  representative  of  all  that  is  highest  in  religion.  It  is 
to  him  the  troubled  statesmen  go  when  they  have  met 
Rabshakeh  at  the  gate  and  have  not  been  able  to  keep  his 
insolent  message  from  the  rabble  that  crowded  the  walls, 
that  foolish  rabble  thoughtful  of  nothing  but  its  own  safety 
which  might  so  easily  make  a  disastrous  panic  within,  and 
force  the  hand  of  the  king  and  his  advisers,  and  precipitate 
destruction.  And  it  is  he  who  dissipates  those  fears,  who 
calms  the  terrors  of  the  crowd,  and  gives  a  tremulous  con- 
fidence to  the  threatened  city : — to  be  followed  by  how 
profound  an  impression  when  the  news  came  of  that 
astounding  and  incomprehensible  catastrophe  which  swept 
Sennacherib's  army  from  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  reduced 
his  power  in  a  moment.  How  extraordinary,  we  say  !  surely 
enough  to  impress  for  ever  upon  the  minds  of  the  most 
frivolous  people  the  conviction  that  Isaiah's  warnings  must 
be  true,  that  his  entreaties  and' adjurations  were  worthy  of 
all  their  attention,  that  what  was  said  by  the  prophet,  so 
tremendously  attested  by  God,  was  as  trustworthy  when  he 
threatened  punishment  as  when  he  promised  deliverance : 
and  so  it  ought  to  have  been  by  all  human  analogy,  and  so 
by  all   human   example   it  was   not.      The  awe,  the  solemn 


224  THE  PROPHETS 


impression,  the  extraordinary  relief  in  a  moment  to  all  the 
terrors  of  the  threatened  city  died  with  the  day  that  brought 
them  forth,  and  the  human  routine  went  on  as  before.  So 
it  has  been  in  every  age  :  and  so  it  will  be,  no  doubt,  till  the 
race  comes  to  an  end,  or  some  other  impulse  higher  than 
any  known  heretofore  gives  a  higher  possibility,  an  alteration 
beyond  all  hopes  to  the  well-known  and  long-established 
"  way  of  the  world." 

It  is  strange  to  imagine  this  great  and  remarkable 
individual  amid  the  crowded  life  of  the  ancient  Jerusalem. 
Amos  and  the  other  prophets  were  of  different  mould.  The 
herdsman  taken  from  following  his  flock  frequented  the 
woodland  sanctuaries  of  Bethel,  roaming  by  the  wayside, 
meeting  the  pilgrims  who  went  and  came,  one  of  the  outdoor 
crowd,  proclaiming  his  message  to  all  the  winds,  a  wild 
figure  of  the  sort  that  had  never  been  unknown  in  Israel,  a 
rhapsodist,  a  wandering  minstrel — but  with  something  more 
exciting  still  than  the  story-telling  of  the  East,  a  message 
which  was,  indeed,  to  all,  but  which  the  crowd  of  the  needy 
and  poor  would,  no  doubt,  eagerly  appropriate  to  their  betters, 
with  that  invariable  satisfaction  in  the  denunciation  which  is 
natural  to  every  crowd.  In  the  beginning  of  his  career  in 
the  later  days  ofUzziah  and  the  confused  and  miserable 
reign  of  Ahaz  there  are  similar  features  in  the  aspect  of 
Isaiah.  In  those  strange  bold  symbolisms  of  fate,  by  which 
he  makes  his  own  domestic  life  a  parable,  and  audaciously 
dates  his  prophecy  of  the  destruction  of  the  conspiring 
powers  which  had  brought  trouble  to  Judah,  by  the  birth  and 
growth  of  his  child — Isaiah  adopts  the  most  tremendous 
practical  method  of  bringing  his  predictions  home  to  his 
hearers.  His  son  Maher-shalal-hash-baz,  "  in  making  speed  to 
the  spoil  he  hasteneth  the  prey  "  (hasteneth  the  moment  when 
he  shall  himself  be  the  prey  ?),  was  not  in  existence  at  the 
time  of  the  prophecy.  The  prophet  had  just  taken  to 
himself  that  bride  who  is  afterwards  spoken  of  as  the 
prophetess.  It  was  when  the  King  of  Syria  and  the  King  of 
Israel  had  made  their  raid  upon  Judah,  destroying  the  fenced 
cities  round  about,  and  carrying  away  many  captives,  chiefly 


CHAP.  I  ISAIAH  227 

it  would  seem  from  the  valley  of  Jordan  towards  Jericho  ; 
and  Jerusalem,  naked  of  these  advanced  posts,  trembled  for 
the  moment  when  the  triumphant  army  should  appear  under 
her  own  walls — that  these  espousals  would  seem  to  have 
taken  place.  Two  witnesses  were  chosen  by  the  prophet  to 
record  the  exact  date.  "  For  before  the  child  shall  have 
knowledge  to  cry,  My  father,  and  my  mother,  the  riches  of 
Damascus  and  the  spoil  of  Samaria  shall  be  taken  away 
before  the  King  of  Assyria."  A  strange  test  and  a  bold, 
belonging  to  the  language  of  symbol  and  fact  which  is  always 
so  impressive  to  the  primitive  mind.  The  whole  city  must 
have  known  that  extraordinary  wager  with  Providence.  And 
when  the  news  came  that  the  great  Assyrian  from  Nineveh — 
that  distant  wonderful  city  of  which  it  was  already  known 
in  story  and  in  .song  that  a  prophet  of  the  Hebrews  had 
been  unwillingly  sent  to  warn  it  of  its  wickedness — had 
appeared  in  the  north,  calling  back  the  Syrian  king  in  hot 
haste  to  defend  his  capital  ;  and  when  a  little  later  terror- 
stricken  messengers  brought  the  report  that  the  hordes  of 
that  distant  and  dimly  apprehended  power  had  swept  away 
Israel  from  Samaria,  till  there  was  left  only  the  poorest 
leavings — "  As  the  shepherd  taketh  out  of  the  mouth  of  the 
lion  two  legs  or  a  piece  of  an  car,"  according  to  the  simile  of 
Amos — with  what  awe-struck  wonder  must  the  inhabitants 
of  Jerusalem  have  gathered  round  the  prophet's  door,  and 
watched  the  little  dark-eyed  child  stammering  forth  the  Lo 
and  Ammi,  the  first  .syllables  of  baby  speech.  In  this  way 
it  seems  Isaiah  established  his  authenticity  before  his  race : 
with  great  indecency,  M.  Renan  and  other  critics  say,  but 
that  is  scarcely  the  question.  It  is  an  incident  that  rtiight 
occur  even  now,  though  probably  not  with  the  same  universal 
publicity,  in  the  same  unchanged  and  unchangeable  land. 

And  was  it,  perhaps,  at  the  same  early  period  that  he 
stood — in  one  of  those  characteristic  openings  of  the  steep 
dark  street  where  the  crowd  that  gathered  to  listen  would 
establish  itself  as  in  a  theatre  in  the  narrow  depth  of  that 
ravine  of  building,  each  line  of  glowing  turban  or  kerchief 
threaded  with  gold,  rising  a   little  higher  than  the  other  ; 


228  THE  PROPHETS 


and  with  the  viol  in  his  hand  which  was  capable  of  serious 
as  well  as  frivolous  use,  sang  in  the  hearing  of  half  Jerusalem 
"  a  song  to  my  wellbeloved,  a  song  of  my  beloved  touching 
his  vineyard  "  ?  Did  the  crowd  expect  it  to  be  no  more  than 
a  song  of  loves,  a  variation  upon  the  old  familiar  theme  ? 
Did  those  who  knew  the  singer  best  pluck  at  their  neigh- 
bours' elbows,  and  bid  the  more  serious  pause  because  of  the 
moral  that  must  be  in  it,  though  the  beginning  sounded  like 
mere  poetry  ? 

My  wellbeloved  hath  a  vineyard  in  a  very  fruitful  hill  : 
And  he  fenced  it,  and  gathered  out  the  stones  thereof, 
And  planted  it  with  the  choicest  vine, 
And  built  a  tower  in  the  midst  of  it, 
And  made  a  winepress  therein.    .   .   . 

And  now,  O  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem, 

0  men  of  Judah, 

Judge,  I  pray  you,  betwixt  me  and  my  vineyard.    .   .   . 

Would  there  be  some  who  would  start  and  shift  and 
disturb  the  crowd,  suspecting  the  unwelcome  message  that 
was  to  come  ?  and  some  who  would  press  nearer  hoping, 
perhaps,  to  exercise  their  sharp  wits  on  a  question  of  casuistry, 
or  to  hear  a  tale  of  oppression,  perhaps  a  tirade  against  some 
patrician,  or  a  piece  of  veiled  and  piquant  treason  such  as 
the  mob  loves  ? 

What  could  have  been  done  more  to  my  vineyard. 

That  I  have  not  done  in  it  ? 

Wherefore,  when  I  looked  that  it  should  bring  forth  grapes, 

Brought  it  forth  wild  grapes  ? 

■  And  now  go  to  ; 

1  will  tell  you  what  I  will  do  to  my  vineyard  : 
I  will  take  away  the  hedge  thereof. 

And  it  shall  be  eaten  up  ; 

And  break  down  the  wall  thereof, 

And  it  shall  be  trodden  down  : 

And  I  will  lay  it  waste  : 

It  shall  not  be  pruned,  nor  digged  ; 

But  there  shall  come  up  briars  and  thorns  : 

I  will  also  command  the  clouds 

That  they  rain  no  rain  upon  it. 


CHAP.  I  ISAIAH  229 

Then,  one  can  fancy  the  louder  note  struck  from  the 
instrument,  the  pause  of  the  singer,  the  stir  in  the  multi- 
tude— 

For  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts 

Is  the  house  of  Israel, 

And  the  men  of  Judah 

Are  the  plant  of  His  pleasure.   ... 

One  of  the  most  wonderful  of  those  early  odes  of  Isaiah 
is  the  wild  and  terrible  song  with  its  burden  "  For  all  this 
His  anger  is  not  turned  away,  but  His  hand  is  stretched 
out  still,"  in  which  vengeance  is  denounced  against  a  power 
scarcely  yet  known.  By  the  guidance  at  once  of  the  sub- 
ject matter  of  the  poem,  and  of  the  date  which  precedes 
a  briefer  lyric,  it  would  seem  to  have  been  written  or  rather 
delivered  during  the  reign  of  Ahaz.  All  Jerusalem  which 
had  lately  trembled  for  the  advance  of  the  allied  armies 
of  Samaria  and  Damascus,  "  Rezin  and  Remaliah's  son " : 
and  whom  Isaiah  had  reassured  not  only  by  prophecy  but 
by  the  curious  limit  of  time  during  which  that  prophecy 
and  their  destruction  was  to  be  accomplished  :  had  after  a 
moment's  exultation  and  relief  begun  again  to  apprehend 
the  approach  of  a  greater  danger  in  the  still  more  powerful 
conqueror  from  the  north,  who  had  overthrown  its  enemies  ; 
the  Assyrian  whom  the  King  of  Judah  had  been  so  unwise  as 
to  call  to  his  aid,  not  perceiving  that  he  himself  and  his  little 
kingdom  must  be  the  next  mouthful  to  that  potentate,  a  far 
more  dangerous  opponent  than  the  other  little  kings  with  whom 
there  had  always  been  a  give  and  take  of  neighbourly  warfare, 
victories  and  reprisals  going  on  from  generation  to  generation. 
Assyria  meant  nothing  less  than  to  sweep  the  whole  stretch 
of  that  rich  historic  country — the  little  territory  which  yet 
held  an  importance  altogether  incommensurate  with  its  area, 
the  country  which  included  that  mystic  sacred  Temple  and 
kingdom  of  Solomon,  of  which  all  the  existing  world  had 
heard,  the  dynasty  which  had  lasted  in  lineal  succession  for 
two  hundred  years — as  well  as  the  great  and  important 
seaport  Tyre,  and  many  other  rich  cities  full  of  spoil. 
There  would,  no  doubt,   be    men   in    Jerusalem  who   could 


230  THE  PROPHETS 


perceive  and  understand  the  ambition  of  this  new  empire, 
far  more  vast  and  with  much  larger  aims  than  any  of 
the  surrounding  kingdoms  of  Palestine,  an  empire  which 
destroyed  and  depopulated,  not  one  whose  incursions  in  one 
generation  could  be  repaid  by  the  next  as  was  the  ancient 
use  and  wont.  And,  perhaps,  even  the  one  threatening 
troublous  visit  which  Tiglath-pileser  had  made  to  his 
trembling  protege  Ahaz,  had  impressed  even  the  populace, 
after  their  brief  exultation  in  the  removal  of  their  immediate 
enemies,  with  an  uneasy  sense  of  that  great  potentate  behind, 
who  could  crush  Judah  when  he  pleased  still  more  easily 
than  he  had  crushed  Israel. 

It  was  probably  in  some  special  outburst  of  this 
smouldering  panic  that  the  prophet  came  out  to  his  door, 
or  took  his  stand  in  the  great  highway  between  the  city 
of  David  and  the  Temple,  the  opening  where  Solomon's 
great  bridge  crossed  the  valley,  or  some  other  public 
place  ;  and  declaimed  once  more  his  message,  "  Thus  saith 
the  Lord."  How  that  many-coloured  Eastern  crowd  would 
swarm  down  every  rocky  lane  and  steep  street  to  hear 
what  this  message  was,  eager  as  all  crowds  are  to  hear 
something  new,  more  eager  still  because  of  the  tremendous 
fulfilment  of  his  last  great  commission  and  the  general  con- 
viction, tempered  by  practical  scepticism,  that  God  spoke  by 
His  prophet.  One  can  scarcely  doubt  that  the  little  symbolic 
child,  the  infant  whose  baby  stammerings  had  marked  the 
time  in  which  his  father's  prediction  was  to  be  verified,  was 
somewhere  by,  clinging  to  the  prophet's  robe,  looking  out 
with  childish  eyes  accustomed  to  the  stare  of  the  wondering 
crowd,  and  to  the  sound  of  the  great  voice  that  pealed  over 
his  head.  What  was  it  that  this  bold  prophet  had  to  pro- 
claim—  the  destruction  perhaps  of  some  other  poor  little 
kingdom  by  the  great  world  -  conqueror  ?  No!  but  the 
destruction  of  that  conqueror  himself:  vast  Babylon  a 
wonder  in  the  mystic  depths  of  distance,  a  golden  city, 
miraculous  in  her  extent,  her  wealth  and  greatness  :  and  her 
sublime  emperor  who  defied  even  God  Himself,  who  had 
laughed   at  all   the  gods  of  the  nations,  who  had  devoured 


CHAP.  I  ISAIAH  231 

race  after  race  like  a  cluster  of  grapes,  to  whose  following 
and  armies  there  was  no  end.  The  Assyrian  !  that  name 
of  fear !  What  had  the  prophet  to  say  of  this  avenger, 
this  universal  victor,  whose  power  overawed  all  the  known 
world  ?  In  the  little  capital  of  this  small  kingdom,  a  speck 
among  the  hills,  amid  a  people  terrified  and  helpless,  debased 
by  effeminacy  and  fear,  no  longer  the  mighty  men  of  the 
heroic  ages,  this  Hebrew  stood  up  and  poured  forth  the  voice 
of  his  vision. 

Ho,  Assyria,  the  rod  of  mine  anger, 

The  slaflF  in  his  hand  is  mine  indignation. 

I  will  send  him  against  a  hypocritical  nation, 

And  against  the  people  of  my  wrath  will  I  give  him  a  charge. 

To  take  the  spoil. 

And  to  take  the  prey, 

And  to  tread  them  down 

Like  the  mire  in  the  streets. 

Howbeit  he  meaneth  not  so. 
Neither  doth  his  heart  think  so. 

For  he  saith, 

By  the  strength  of  my  hand  I  have  done  it, 

And  by  my  wisdom  ;  for  I  am  prudent : 

I  have  removed  the  bounds  of  the  people, 

I  have  put  down  the  inhabitants 

Like  a  valiant  man.   .   .   . 

Shall  the  axe  boast  itself  against  him  that  heweth  therewith  ? 
Shall  the  saw  magnify  itself  against  him  that  shaketh  it  ? 
As  if  the  rod  should  shake  them  that  lift  it  up. 
Or  the  staff  against  that  (the  hand)  which  is  not  wood. 

We  can  only  pause  here  to  note  how  the  prophet  bursts 
forth  in  the  midst  of  this  discourse,  as  of  many  others, 
into  that  great  proclamation  of  final  deliverance  which 
throughout  all  seems  to  seize  him  from  time  to  time  by 
an  overmastering  force,  carrying  him  far  beyond  the  partial 
and  temporary  deliverances  which  are  his  immediate  subject, 
transporting  him  into  a  changed  world  which  in  his  inspired 
rhapsody  is  near  at  hand  as  to-morrow,  the  everlasting  day- 
spring,  the  fulfilment  of  all  promises.      So  full   is  his  mind 


232  THE  PROPHETS 


with  that  hope,  that  it  bursts  from  him  whenever  he  pauses 
to  take  breath,  raising  no  doubt  a  bewildering  excitement  in 
the  mind  of  all  these  eager  listeners  who  had  heard  vaguely 
of  a  Messiah,  a  great  King,  all  their  lives,  and  who  would 
recognise  in  the  uplifted  eyes,  the  illuminated  face,  the 
change  of  voice,  that  the  orator  had  been  swept  away  into 
that  subject  most  co^ngenial  to  him.  He  returns  to  his  present 
theme  with  a  sigh,  a  sob  of  altered  utterance.  "  Therefore 
thus  saith  the  Lord  God  of  Hosts,  O  my  people  that 
dwellest  in  Zion,  be  not  afraid  of  the  Assyrian."  No,  not 
even  when  he  comes,  when  his  hosts  pour  over  the  country, 
when  the  terrified  posts  bring  news  of  his  advance  day 
by  day,  and  imagination  paints  his  progress  over  the  deso- 
lated country. 

He  is  come  to  Aiath, 

He  is  passed  to  Migron  ; 

At  Michmash  he  hath  laid  up  his  carriages  : 

They  are  gone  over  the  passage  : 

They  have  taken  up  their  lodging  at  Geba  ; 

Ramah  is  afraid  ; 

Gibeah  of  Saul  is  fled. 

Cry  shrill  with  thy  voice,  O  daughter  of  Gallim  : 

Listen,  O  Laish  !  thou  poor  Anathoth. 

Madmenah  is  scattered  ; 

The  inhabitants  of  Gebim  gather  to  flee. 

This  very  day  he  will  halt  at  Nob  : 

He  will  shake  his  hand 

Against  the  mount  of  the  daughter  of  Zion, 

Against  the  hill  of  Jerusalem. 

This  is  as  who  should  say.  The  invader  is  landed  at 
Dover,  he  has  abandoned  his  ships,  he  has  passed  Canter- 
bury and  Rochester,  the  men  of  Kent  have  forsaken  their 
villages,  he  has  set  up  his  camp  at  Woolwich  and  threatens 
London.  It  is  in  imagination  that  the  prophet  sees  this 
terrible  advance.  But  the  trembling  hearers  knew  that  it  was 
a  thing  that  might  happen  any  day.  It  did  happen  when 
Rabshakeh  and  his  party  made  their  way,  their  master  to 
follow  as  soon  as  he  had  completed  the  siege  of  Lachish — 
to  the  gates  of  Jerusalem.      But — 


CHAP,  I  ISAIAH  233 

Behold,  the  Lord,  the  Lord  of  hosts, 
Shall  lop  the  bough  : 
The  high  ones  shall  be  hewn  down, 
The  haughty  shall  be  humbled. 

He  shall  cut  down  the  thickets  of  the  forest  with  iron, 
And  Lebanon  shall  fall 
By  one  that  is  mighty. 

More  distinct  and  detailed  is  the  burden  of  Babylon 
which  follows,  in  which  her  utter  destruction  is  the  theme, 
and  the  Medes  in  their  fierce  disinterestedness,^  "  which  shall 
not  regard  silver,"  rise  up  pitiless  before  our  eyes  :  and  still 
more  wonderful  is  the  vision  in  which  the  prophet,  suddenly 
rapt  as  is  his  characteristic  from  the  more  practical  and 
immediate  scope  of  his  poem,  and  plunged  with  an  over- 
whelming force  of  impulse  into  the  future  and  the  unseen, 
tears  aside  the  dark  veil  of  Hades  and  displays  the  great 
dead,  the  monarchs  of  the  past,  rising  to  meet  the  fallen 
conqueror — 

Hell  from  beneath  is  moved  for  thee 
To  meet  thee  at  thy  coming  : 
It  stirreth  up  the  dead  for  thee, 
Even  all  the  chief  ones  of  the  earth  : 
It  hath  raised  up  from  their  thrones 
All  the  kings  of  the  nations. 

All  they  shall  speak  and  say  unto  thee. 
Art  thou  also  become  weak  as  we  ? 
Art  thou  become  like  unto  us  ? 

Thy  pomp  is  brought  down  to  the  grave, 
And  the  noise  of  thy  viols  : 
The  worm  is  spread  under  thee 
And  the  worms  cover  thee. 

How  art  thou  fallen  from  heaven, 
O  Lucifer,  son  of  the  morning  ! 
How  art  thou  cut  down  to  the  ground, 
Which  didst  weaken  the  nations  ! 


*  I  take  from  the  commentary  of  Dr.  Payne  Smith  the  remarkable  note, 
••  Xenophon  makes  Cyrus  speak  to  the  Medes  of  not  having  joined  him  from  a 
desire  of  money." 


234  THE  rROPHETS 


They  that  see  thee  shall  narrowly  look  upon  thee, 
And  consider  thee, 

Is  this  the  man  that  made  the  earth  to  tremble, 
That  did  shake  kingdoms  ? 

That  made  the  world  as  a  wilderness. 

And  destroyed  the  cities  thereof; 

That  opened  not  the  house  of  his  prisoners  ? 

One  may  imagine  how  years  after,  when  Sennacherib's 
great  army  perished,  and  all  the  immediate  alarms  of  the 
Hebrews  were  silenced  in  a  moment  by  the  great  news,  and 
the  messengers  were  surrounded  with  excited  crowds  from 
every  street  to  hear  each  detail  of  that  unhoped-for  deliver- 
ance—  Isaiah's  great  ode  which  had  been  listened  to  in  its 
first  utterance  with  troubled  and  wondering  incomprehension, 
may  have  been  taken  out  from  among  the  other  rolls  of 
mystic  writing  and  read  with  an  understanding  and  awed 
acknowledgment  of  its  tremendous  truth.  Sennacherib's 
fall  was  not  the  final  meaning  of  that  prophecy,  yet 
it  might  well  have  seemed  so,  a  presage  and  preface. 
Hezekiah  no  doubt  had  heard  it  proclaimed,  when  he 
was  a  boy,  in  his  father's  troubled  and  disastrous  reign, 
when,  perhaps,  the  utmost  that  was  thought  of  it  was  that 
it  was  an  imaginative  speculation,  a  vision  of  what  might 
be  if  ever  that  great  and  conquering  power  should  fall.  In 
the  same  way,  I  believe,  it  was  applied  to  Napoleon  in  the 
time  of  his  glory.  And  it  can  scarcely  be  believed  that 
there  were  not  men  in  Judah  who  were  capable  of  feeling 
the  force  of  the  poetry  and  upon  whose  memory  that  picture 
of  Hades  had  imprinted  itself  with  the  vividness  of  youthful 
recollection.  When  the  first  wonder,  the  first  stunned  and 
startled  sensation,  the  rapture  of  exultation  in  their  deliver- 
ance were  somewhat  abated,  would  not  they  bethink  them- 
selves— was  there  not  something  we  have  heard,  a  poem 
beginning  "  Hades  is  moved,"  a  vision  that  made  the  heart 
beat?  Surely  it  was  of  the  Assyrian  the  prophet  spoke? 
Isaiah  in  these  latter  days  was  no  longer,  perhaps,  the 
minstrel  prophet  who  had  declaimed  his  warnings  and  his 
promises  in  the  public  places,  who  had  walked  barefoot  as 


CHAP.  I  ISAIAH  235 

a  sign  and  symbol,  whose  child  had  been  the  measure  of 
predicted  time.  He  was  the  counsellor  of  the  king,  the  man 
to  whom  even  the  politicians  made  their  resort  when  their 
difficulties  were  overwhelming,  the  great  and  acknowledged 
instructor  as  well  as  the  most  wonderful  poet  that  was 
known  in  Jerusalem.  Did  some  gay  deputation  of  young 
lords  pour  into  his  chamber,  all  joy  and  tumult,  more 
sceptical  than  believing,  rousing  him  from  those  great 
dreams  of  the  Deliverer  to  come,  on  which  all  his  being 
was  intent,  bidding  him  come  and  read  to  the  king  that 
old  thing  of  his,  which  the  old  men  were  talking  of,  that 
vision,  or  whatever  it  might  be,  of  Hades  ?  Let  him  arise 
and  bring  it  forth  and  read  to  the  king.  And  with  what 
awe  would  Hezekiah  listen,  in  his  timid  faithfulness,  for 
whom  Hades  would  never  be  disturbed,  whose  hope  was 
for  peace  in  his  own  day  whatever  might  follow,  and 
perhaps  a  humble  slipping  into  heaven  at  the  end,  no  king, 
but  the  least  of  God's  servants.  No  exultation,  no  cry  of 
triumph  was  in  that  poem,  but  the  awe  of  a  great  judgment 
and  a  great  suffering,  a  vast  and  dim  unseen  world  where 
there  was  neither  fire  nor  flame,  but  a  great  suspense. 
Dante  has  nothing  so  splendid  in  all  his  sublime  Inferno. 

Isaiah  grew  old  like  other  men.  He  lived  through 
four  reigns  and  filled  Jerusalem  with  his  voice :  and 
poured  forth,  pealing  through  those  deep  streets,  such  songs 
as  had  never  been  heard  among  them  save  in  the  first 
splendid  age  of  national  consolidation.  There  had  been 
wandering  poets  of  lesser  note  in  sheepskin  and  camel's  hair 
out  of  the  wilderness,  a  herdsman  like  Amos,  wild  and 
strange  in  the  fatigue  of  his  flight,  banished  out  of  Israel  for 
his  words  that  troubled  the  land  ;  or  a  sudden  apparition 
undistinguished  even  by  his  father's  name,  Nahum  the 
Klkoshite,  Micah  the  Morasthitc,  appearing  like  meteors, 
passing  across  the  busy  background  of  common  life,  listened 
to  for  a  moment  by  the  rushing  crowd  ever  eager  for  song 
or  story,  and  never  unwilling  to  hear  what  terrors  were 
denounced  against  its  neighbours  of  the  northern  kingdom. 
But   Isaiah  must  have  been  as  well  known  to  Jerusalem  as 


236  THE  PROrHETS 


the  towers  of  Millo,  or  the  pillars  of  the  Temple  ;  and  in  his 
old  age  a  certain  change  had  come  over  his  great  voice. 
Probably  he  came  forth  no  longer  to  declaim  his  message,  to 
give  expression  to  the  confusion  and  terror  of  the  popular 
heart  as  when  the  whole  city  was  stirred  to  listen  for  every 
rumour  of  those  dreadful  deeds  that  were  being  enacted  in 
Samaria,  and  his  cry  "  Watchman,  what  of  the  night  ?  "  pealed 
into  every  soul.  He  was  now  abiding  in  his  house,  an  old 
man,  rapt  more  and  more  in  the  heavenly  vision,  in  those 
strong  consolations  which  God  had  provided  for  the  faithful 
among  his  people  ;  yet  still  by  times  moved  by  what  was 
going  on  around,  pouring  forth  his  denunciations  upon  the 
sins  of  Jerusalem,  the  extortion,  the  injustice,  the  cruelty  of 
men  who  made  their  appearance  daily  at  the  Temple  services 
and  attempted  in  their  folly  and  wickedness  to  flatter  the 
great  God  with  sacrifices,  as  if  the  smoke  of  their  offerings 
might  keep  Him  from  seeing  the  burdens  which  they  bound 
upon  the  poor  and  feeble.  "  Is  it  such  a  fast  that  I  have 
chosen  ?  "  he  cried  with  indignant  wrath  and  irony:  "  a  day  for 
a  man  to  afflict  his  soul  ?  is  it  to  bow  down  his  head  like  a 
bulrush,  and  to  spread  sackcloth  and  ashes  under  him  ? 
Is  not  this  the  fast  that  I  have  chosen  ?  to  loose  the  bands 
of  wickedness,  to  undo  the  heavy  burdens,  and  to  let  the 
oppressed  go  free,  and  that  ye  break  every  yoke  ? "  And 
when  the  gentle  Hezekiah  died  he  poured  forth  his  tribute 
of  lamentation  : — not  to  mourn  for  him  ;  for  why  should  the 
old  prophet  mourn  for  a  good  man  removed,  taken  away  from 
the  evil  to  come  ?  "  He  shall  enter  into  peace  "  :  but  yet  it 
was  heavy  on  the  patriot  spirit  to  see  that  "the  righteous 
perisheth  and  no  man  layeth  it  to  heart,"  and  that  now  once 
more  is  the  time  for  "  the  sons  of  the  sorceress  "  to  lift  up 
their  heads  under  the  new  reign,  which  is  that  of  a  child, 
destined  in  his  time  to  be  one  of  the  worst  of  Judah's 
kings. 

All  these  things  does  Isaiah  remark  in  his  seclusion  with 
a  profound  and  indignant  sorrow.  Nor  does  he  forget  his 
cry  of  "  Woe  to  Babylon  "  nor  the  doom  which  he  has  already 
so    often   denounced   upon   that  still   powerful   and   splendid 


ciiAi>.  I  ISAIAH  237 

city,  to  which  the  seat  of  power  of  the  Assyrian  empire  was 
to  be  transferred,  and  whose  final  action  as  the  scourge  in 
God's  hand  was  yet  to  be  carried  out  against  Jerusalem,  from 
which  the  danger  had  been  averted  by  the  destruction  of 
Sennacherib,  but  only  for  a  time.  The  wonderful  details  of 
the  destruction  denounced  upon  Babylon,  that  come  in,  as  if 
seen  by  a  gleam  of  lightning  in  the  confused  atmosphere  of 
disaster — the  iron  gates  unbarred,  the  two-leaved  gates,  a  par- 
ticular also  proclaimed  by  Nahum,  with  that  sudden  touch  of 
precision  in  the  mist  and  rolling  clouds  of  prophetic  rhapsody 
which  recurs  so  often — and  the  indication  of  Cyrus  by  name 
as  at  once  the  destroyer  of  the  Assyrian  power,  and  the 
deliverer  of  Judah — arc  so  extraordinary  that  it  is  only 
natural  that  critics  to  whom  in  their  denial  of  all  that  is 
supernatural  this  would  be  a  deathblow,  should  contend 
violently  for  a  second  Isaiah,  not  the  prophet  we  know  but 
another,  an  equally  great  poet,  but  without  so  much  as  a  sign 
of  his  passage  through  the  crowd. 

These  things,  however,  though  they  have  so  much  im- 
portance in  history,  are  but  accidental,  the  asides  of  the 
great  revelation  in  which  the  old  prophet's  whole  soul  is 
ab.sorbed  :  which  is  that  of  the  Messiah,  the  King  of  Right- 
eousness, the  Son  of  David,  of  whom  and  for  whom  all  the 
promises  of  the  establishment  of  David's  throne  had  been 
made.  That  glorious  prospect  which  rose  upon  him  in  the 
quiet  of  his  age  while  all  the  conflicts  raged  without,  trans- 
ported Isaiah  by  times  into  those  old  fervours  of  prophetic 
ecstasy  which  are  so  characteristic  of  his  splendid  manhood 
and  passionate  height  of  inspiration.  He  who  proclaimed 
trouble  and  distress  so  often,  who  even  in  his  promise  of 
immediate  deliverance  had  not  concealed  a  darker  day  to 
come,  breaks  forth  anon  into  cries  of  joy  that  thrill  the  air. 
Or  if  the  reader  pleases  it  is  now  the  new  Isaiah,  the  poet  of 
the  restoration  who  speaks  : 

Awake,  awake ; 
Put  on  thy  .strength,  O  Zion  ; 
Put  on  thy  beautiful  j,Mrments, 
O  Jerusalem,  the  holy  city  ! 


238  THE  PROPHETS 


Shake  thyself  from  the  dust ; 

Arise,  O  Jerusalem  : 

Loose  thyself  from  the  bands  of  thy  neck, 

O  captive  daughter  of  Zion. 

How  beautiful  upon  the  mountains 

Are  the  feet  of  him  that  bringeth  good  tidings, 

That  publisheth  peace  ; 

That  bringeth  good  tidings. 

That  publisheth  salvation  ; 

That  saith  unto  Zion, 

Thy  God  reigneth  ! 

Thy  watchmen  shall  lift  up  the  voice  ; 
With  the  voice  together  shall  they  sing  : 
For  they  shall  see  eye  to  eye, 
When  the  Lord  shall  bring  again  Zion. 

Break  forth  into  joy, 

Sing  together. 

Ye  waste  places  of  Jerusalem  : 

For  the  Lord  hath  comforted  his  people, 

He  hath  redeemed  Jerusalem. 

The  Lord  hath  made  bare  His  holy  arm 
In  the  eyes  of  all  the  nations  ; 
And  all  the  ends  of  the  earth 
Shall  see  the  salvation  of  our  God. 

By  whom  was  this  glory  to  come,  this  joy  so  far  transcend- 
ing everything  that  eye  has  seen  or  ear  heard  or  the  heart  of 
man  conceived — not  the  salvation  of  Judah  alone  but  of  all 
the  ends  of  the  earth,  crowding  round  her  as  the  holy  city  ? 
It  is  by  the  King  that  shall  reign  in  righteousness,  the  new 
branch  which  shall  spring  out  of  the  root  of  Jesse,  "my 
Servant "  called  by  Jehovah,  "  Him  in  whom  my  soul 
delighteth."  And  of  what  manner  of  being  is  this  Holy 
One  of  Israel  ?  This  is  what  Isaiah  asks,  in  vision,  in  high 
and  wonderful  poetic  musings,  "  searching,"  as  St.  Peter 
explained  long  after,  "  what  or  what  manner  of  time  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  which  was  in  him  did  signify."  What  did 
it  signify  ?  Something  too  strange  for  belief,  too  wonderful 
for  the  most  authentic  vision.  Was  he  but  dimly  conscious 
what  it  meant?  did  he  believe  it  allegorical,  a  similitude,  a 
spiritual  picture,  not  a  fact  to  be  verified  in  every  detail  ?  or 


CHAP.  I  ISAIAH  239 

did  he  cry  out  like  Peter  and  the  rest  "  Be  it  far  from  thee, 
Lord  ! "  in  the  first  anguish  and  comprehension  of  what  they 
meant,  those  wonderful  words  ? 

He  is  despised  and  rejected  of  men  ; 

A  man  of  sorrows. 

And  acquainted  with  grief ; 

And  we  hid  as  it  were  our  faces  from  him  : 

He  was  despised, 

And  we  esteemed  him  not. 

Surely  he  hath  borne  our  griefs. 
And  carried  our  sorrows  : 
Yet  we  did  esteem  him  stricken, 
Smitten  of  God,  and  afflicted. 

But  he  was  wounded  for  our  transgressions. 
He  was  bruised  for  our  iniquities  : 
The  chastisement  of  our  peace  was  upon  him  ; 
And  with  his  stripes  we  are  healed. 

All  we,  like  sheep,  have  gone  astray  ; 

We  have  turned  every  one  to  his  own  way  ; 

And  the  Lord  hath  laid  on  him  the  iniquity  of  us  all. 

He  was  oppressed,  and  he  was  afflicted  ; 
Yet  he  opened  not  his  mouth  : 
He  is  brought  as  a  lamb  to  the  slaughter. 
And  as  a  sheep  before  her  shearers  is  dumb. 
So  he  opened  not  his  mouth. 

He  was  taken  from  prison  and  from  judgment  : 
And  who  shall  declare  his  generation  ? 
For  he  was  cut  off  out  of  the  land  of  the  living  : 
For  the  transgression  of  my  people  was  he  stricken. 

And  he  made  his  grave  with  the  wicked. 
And  with  a  rich  man  in  his  death  ; 
Because  he  had  done  no  violence, 
Neither  was  any  deceit  found  in  his  mouth. 

Yet  it  pleased  the  Lord  to  bruise  him  ; 

He  hath  put  him  to  grief: 

When  thou  shalt  make  his  soul  an  offering  for  sin, 

He  shall  see  his  seed, 

He  shall  prolong  his  d.iys. 

And  the  pleasure  of  the  Lord  shall  prosper  in  his  hand. 


240  THE  PROrHETS 


When  it  burst  upon  Isaiah  that  this  wonderful  description, 
rising  line  by  line  to  his  poet  lips,  concerned  the  King,  the 
Saviour,  the  God  with  us,  of  his  own  long-past  prophecy, 
did  the  old  man  fall  upon  his  face  before  the  Lord  and  cry 
"  Not  so,  not  so  "  ?  But  the  prophet  has  no  longer  anything 
to  say  of  himself.  It  is  not  his  now  to  undo  the  sandal 
from  his  foot  and  the  sackcloth  from  his  loins  until  these 
things  should  come  to  pass.  Far  off  in  the  distance  in  times 
unknown  lay  this  tragedy  so  fully  told,  so  unmistakable. 
"  Abraham  rejoiced  to  see  my  day  :  he  saw  it,  and  was  glad." 
But  was  not  Isaiah  rather  glad  that  not  to  his  eyes  except 
in  vision  should  this  anguish  be  ?  Be  it  far  from  thee.  Lord  ! 
so  we  should  all  have  cried  had  we  been  in  that  secret. 
What  imagination  of  man  could  have  dreamed  of  a 
Deliverer  like  this  ?  And  was  it,  perhaps,  with  some  vain 
human  thought  of  averting  that  Sufferer's  pain  that  the  old 
man  at  the  end  of  his  career  flung  up  his  arms  to  heaven 
and  cried,  as  so  many  since  then  have  done  after  him,  "  O 
that  thou  wouldest  rend  the  heavens,  that  thou  wouldest 
come  down,  that  the  mountains  might  dissolve  at  thy  pre- 
sence ! "  O  that  thou  wouldest  so  burst  forth  upon  the 
world  in  manifest  majesty,  in  glory  that  no  man  could  gain- 
say, that  the  stubborn  race  might  be  convinced  once  for  all 
in  spite  of  itself!  Who  has  not  consciously  or  unconsciously 
echoed  that  prayer  ?  but  not  such  are  the  ways  of  God. 

There  is  an  old,  old  tree,  supported  by  props  of  piled 
stones,  still  standing  near  the  waters  of  Siloam  in  the  valley 
of  Hinnom,  at  the  foot  of  Moriah — a  hoary  and  venerable 
tree  like  an  old  man  in  the  last  decrepitude  of  age,  under 
which,  according  to  local  tradition,  Isaiah  was  cruelly  put  to 
death  by  King  Manasseh,  the  successor  of  the  good  Hezekiah 
— sawn  asunder  says  the  legend.  He  must  have  been  so 
old  that,  let  us  hope,  the  hands  of  the  executioners  shook  the 
feeble  life  out  of  him  before  the  atrocities  began.  Is  the  old 
mulberry-tree  the  descendant  of  some  tree  that  saw  that 
terrible  deed  accomplished  ?  for  tradition  is  very  tenacious  in 
those  strange  unchanging  countries.  At  all  events  it  bears  the 
most  pathetic  resemblance  to  the  oldest  of  conceivable  old  men 


CHAP,  I  ISAIAH  241 

— and  as  such  may  be  accepted  as  a  natural  monument  to 
the  old  poet  who  has  provided  us  with  many  of  the  most 
glorious  imaginations  that  have  ever  passed  through  the 
mind  of  man,  and  whom  we  have  known  in  his  impassioned 
youth  and  vehement  manhood  as  well  as  in  his  old  age,  a 
wonder  and  a  splendour  in  the  earth. 

We  might  ask,  supposing  that  Cyrus  was  added  by  an 
anonymous  contemporary,  what  hand  pictured  forth  the  Man 
of  Sorrows  ?  and  how  did  even  he,  the  imaginary  Isaiah  of 
the  captivity,  know  of  that  Divine  Sufferer  that  was  to  be — 
yet  was  not  to  be  for  many  hundreds  of  years?  Cyrus  is 
a  trifle  in  comparison.  But  this  is  no  place  for  vain  argu- 
ment. 


CHAPTER    II 

JEREMIAH 

A  PERIOD  of  about  sixty  years  elapsed  between  the  end  of 
Isaiah's  career  and  the  beginning  of  that  of  Jeremiah  —  a 
period  in  which  there  were  the  usual  vicissitudes,  the  fall 
and  the  reaction  which  are  so  universal  in  Jewish  history. 
Manasseh,  who  had  succeeded  to  the  throne  as  a  child, 
became  wildly  profligate  in  his  manhood  and  adopted  the 
most  cruel  and  abominable  superstitions,  until,  presumably 
in  his  later  years,  trouble  came  upon  him,  and  the  humilia- 
tion of  being  dragged  to  Babylon  in  the  train  of  the  con- 
queror brought  tardy  conviction  and  penitence  to  his  heart. 
This  foretaste  of  the  destruction  that  was  to  come  would 
seem  to  have  sobered  and  startled  the  rulers  of  Israel :  for 
Josiah  his  grandson,  after  the  brief  reign  of  his  son  Amon, 
must  have  been  brought  up  in  the  fear  of  God,  since  his 
earliest  acts  are  those  of  reformation,  a  reformation  more 
thoroughgoing  than  any  that  had  preceded  it,  and  fondly 
hoped,  it  would  seem,  to  have  been  decisive  :  since  the  idols, 
with  the  fierceness  of  a  vengeance  upon  those  senseless  things 
which  is  very  human  and  natural,  were  ground  to  powder, 
thus  securing  that  they  should  never  be  raised  up  again. 
Notwithstanding  in  the  fourteenth  year  of  this  good  king's 
reign,  while  these  reformations  were  going  on,  the  voice  of 
warning  was  again  raised  in  Jerusalem,  and  this  time  with  a 
force  which  exceeded  all  previous  threatenings  in  the  un- 
broken terror  of  its  denunciations,  as  the  events  about  to 
take  place  exceeded  all  others  in  their  misery. 


CHAP.  II  JEREMIAH  243 

When  Jeremiah  began  his  prophecies  Josiah  his  con- 
temporary was  twenty-two,  a  young  man  strongly  imbued 
with  religious  feeling,  and  anxious  to  conform  his  kingdom 
to  the  regulations  of  its  ancient  worship.  Judah  however  by 
this  time  shared  the  diminished  condition  of  every  other  little 
kingdom  round,  overshadowed  by  the  great  Assyrian,  and 
retaining  its  separate  existence  only  by  his  forbearance. 
It  was  diminished  in  prestige  if  not  in  actual  power:  its 
borders  had  already  been  devastated  again  and  again,  its 
frontier  cities  taken,  and  its  very  capital  visited  by  the  con- 
queror. It  would  not  seem,  however,  that  these  disasters 
had  seriously  affected  the  people,  at  least  in  a  moral  point 
of  view.  There  had,  indeed,  already  arisen  in  that  small 
stronghold  and  sanctuary  of  national  life  among  the^aills,  an 
Egyptian  party,  hoping  to  find  in  that  great  power,  itself 
just  springing  into  vigour  again  after  defeat  and  humiliation, 
an  ally  who  could  defend  them  from  the  Assyrian  :  just  as 
there  was  in  the  Scotland  of  the  Reformation  an  English 
party  much  recommended  by  reason,  but  highly  objectionable 
to  national  feeling  :  the  Egyptian  party  in  the  former  case 
being  one  to  which  the  king  himself  was  strongly  opposed. 

At  the  same  time  there  existed  a  still  more  visible 
conflict,  the  struggle  of  the  king  to  bring  about  such  a 
revolution  of  feeling  as  might  still  save  his  nation,  but 
working  almost  alone  with  the  aid  of  a  "  clerical  party," 
perhaps  ;  though  the  priesthood,  too,  seems  to  have  been 
supine,  only  able  to  effectuate  any  reform  by  the  initiative 
of  the  king — and  the  country  entirely  indifferent  to  any 
such  esoteric  way  of  defending  itself,  intent  upon  other 
methods,  on  getting  more  warlike  races  to  fight  its  battles, 
on  securing  by  diplomacy  its  exemption  from  those  evils 
which  had  already  overwhelmed  so  many  little  nations 
under  its  eyes.  King  Josiah's  idea  that  a  reform  of  morals 
could  have  any  effect  on  the  position  of  affairs  was,  no  doubt, 
folly  and  fanaticism  in  the  eyes  of  his  chiefs  and  captains,  as 
well  as  in  those  of  the  people  generally,  a  devout  imagina- 
tion worthy  of  the  most  benighted  times.  No  doubt  they 
turned  with  contemptuous  impatience  from  such  suggestions, 


244  THE  PROPHETS 


which  might  suit  the  old  world,  but  were  far  too  antiquated 
and  arricre  for  them,  and  lamented  the  Puritanism  which 
occupied  itself  with  cutting  down  pleasant  trees,  and  burning 
many  fine  examples  of  Phoenician  art  in  the  way  of  deities, 
when  it  ought  to  have  been  framing  useful  treaties  and 
making  alliances  of  a  profitable  kind  in  preparation  for 
confronting  the  Assyrian.  On  the  contrary,  Josiah,  it  would 
seem,  was  faithful  to  the  treaty  made  with  the  Assyrian  whose 
tributary  Judah  had  been  from  the  time  his  grandfather, 
Manasseh,  figured  among  the  captive  kings  at  Babylon. 

In  those  days  a  young  priest  of  the  highest  rank — the 
son  of  Hilkiah,  the  high  priest,  as  generally  believed — very 
different  in  station  and  breeding  from  the  other  prophets 
who  ha(i  made  the  air  resound  with  their  outcries  in  the 
former  generations — a  young  man,  no  doubt  full  of  all  the 
learning  of  the  time  :  was  suddenly  visited  by  that  mysterious 
impulse  which  like  other  breathings  of  the  Spirit  went  where 
it  listed,  calling  one  here  and  one  there  by  an  irresistible 
call.  The  young  priest  was  consecrated  to  God's  service, 
yet  not  in  so  strange  and  terrible  a  way — and  his  spirit 
failed  him  when  this  vocation  came  upon  him.  "  Ah,  Lord 
God  !  behold,  I  cannot  speak  ;  for  I  am  a  child,"  he  cried. 
He  had  not  the  innocent  unconsciousness  of  the  child-prophet 
in  the  ancient  tabernacle,  the  young  Samuel  who  answered, 
"  Here  I  am "  in  the  same  simple  faith  to  his  master  on 
earth  and  his  Master  in  heaven.  Jeremiah,  from  his  youth, 
must  have  had  a  melancholy  and  troubled  spirit,  feeling  to 
the  depths  of  his  heart  the  uneasy  condition  of  all  about  him, 
the  seething  of  all  the  disorderly  elements,  the  decomposition 
of  the  national  life.  He  shrank  in  his  timidity  and  sadness 
from  the  terrible  task  put  upon  him.  He  had  not  the 
splendid  and  fiery  eloquence  of  Isaiah,  the  impetus  of 
genius  and  energy  which  carried  that  prophet,  swift  and 
triumphant,  to  the  heights  and  depths  of  his  subject  what- 
ever that  might  be.  And  the  rapid  dramatic  succession  of 
terror  and  deliverance,  the  parables,  the  songs,  the  visions, 
the  infinite  variety  of  his  predecessor  were  not  his.  He 
could    play    but    on    one    string,   in    one    key,   touching   the 


CHAP.  II  JEREMIAH  245 

mournful  notes  of  lamentation,  descending  to  the  deep  bass 
of  despair,  but  rarely  rising  to  any  happier  tone.  Indeed 
there  was  little  to  move  him  that  way.  The  sweep  and 
impulse  of  the  stream,  nearing  the  rapids,  the  growing  velocity 
of  a  course  which  was  always  downward,  and  in  which  there 
was  every  day  more  certainty  that  it  could  never  now  be 
arrested,  was  all  around  him — and  his  message  was  the 
heaviest  given  to  man,  the  proclamation  of  opportunities  lost 
and  never  to  be  recovered,  of  judgment  no  longer  to  be 
averted,  of  punishment  beyond  reprieve.  Other  prophets 
had  amid  their  darkest  auguries  a  gleam  of  light.  It  had 
still  been  possible  for  the  fated  people  to  change  their  own 
destiny,  to  turn  aside  disaster,  to  stay  their  steps  in  the 
evil  way.  But  now  the  time  of  possibility  was  almost  over. 
"  Gird  up  thy  loins,  and  arise,  and  speak  unto  them  all  that  I 
command  thee :  be  not  dismayed  at  their  faces,  lest  I  con- 
found thee  before  them.  For,  behold,  I  have  made  thee  this 
day  a  defenced  city,  and  an  iron  pillar,  and  brazen  walls, 
against  the  whole  land  ;  against  the  kings  of  Judah,  and  the 
princes  thereof,  against  the  priests  thereof,  and  against  the 
people  of  the  land.  And  they  shall  fight  against  thee, 
but  they  shall  not  prevail  against  thee  ;  for  I  am  with  thee, 
saith  the  Lord,  to  deliver  thee." 

What  a  charge  was  this  for  the  trembling  youth  in  his 
linen  cphod,  with  his  timid  habits  of  the  cloister,  so  to  speak, 
the  Temple  courts,  the  service  of  the  altars.  All  against  him 
— kings  and  princes,  priests  and  people — and  he  to  stand 
and  proclaim  the  anathema  upon  them  all !  "  Go  and  cry 
in  the  ears  of  Jerusalem."  His  father,  the  high  priest,  head 
of  that  troubled  hierarchy,  so  often  dismissed  with  obloquy, 
so  often  hastily  brought  together  again  from  their  hiding- 
places,  to  reorganise  the  national  worship — with  what  terror 
he  must  have  seen  his  son  separate  himself  from  the  other 
harmless  neophytes,  thrust  himself  forward  to  the  gaze  and 
gape  of  the  people,  defying  all  the  powers  that  were  !  Most 
likely  the  office  of  the  prophet  was  never  a  popular  one  : 
but  how  much  less  popular  now  when  there  was  nothing  to 
say  but  evil,  nothing  to  promise  but  destruction  !     And  it 


246  THE  PROPHETS 


was  not  enough  that  this  chosen  messenger  of  doom  should 
put  down  his  predictions  upon  the  parchment,  and  write  them 
on  a  roll.  Not  so  easily  as  this,  in  the  quiet  of  his  own 
chamber  within  hearing  of  the  songs  of  the  Temple,  with 
the  soothing  routine  of  religious  rites  dividing  the  hours — 
was  his  task  to  be  accomplished.  "  Stand  in  the  gate  of 
the  Lord's  house,  and  proclaim  there  this  word,  and  say. 
Hear  the  word  of  the  Lord  all  ye  of  Judah,  that  enter  in  at 
these  gates  to  worship  the  Lord." 

The  whole  scene  comes  before  us  in  these  words  : 
the  crest  of  Millo,  the  town  of  David,  the  tomb  upon 
the  height  that  covered  the  remains  of  Israel's  greatest 
kings.  Across  the  deep  cleft  of  the  valley  under  the 
Temple  wall  he  could  see  the  steep  streets  pouring  down 
their  crowds  towards  the  gates  and  the  open  country 
beyond  ;  while  across  the  great  bridges  streamed  the  devout 
and  the  formal,  and  the  fringe  of  idlers  and  curious  persons 
coming  towards  the  Temple.  He  was  no  orator,  "  behold,  I 
cannot  speak."  He  had  not  the  confidence  of  the  wild 
herdsman  from  Tekoa  in  his  sackcloth  and  sheepskin  whom 
nobody  knew,  and  who  might  babble  as  he  would  to  a  mob 
of  strangers,  without  any  personal  committal  or  compromise. 
But  Jeremiah  was  well  known — the  high  priest's  son,  a 
patrician  youth,  yet  one  of  whom  all  might  say,  how  dared 
he  to  put  himself  forward,  a  mere  boy,  presuming  on  his 
father's  office,  and  on  the  favour  of  his  kinsfolk?  No 
wonder  that  he  hesitated  and  held  back  : — yet  the  impulse 
was  too  mighty  to  be  resisted.  "  I  am  pained  at  the  very 
heart ;  my  heart  maketh  a  noise  in  me  ;  I  cannot  hold  my 
peace  :  because  thou  hast  heard,  O  my  soul,  the  sound  of 
the  trumpet,  the  alarm  of  war."  "  Run  ye  to  and  fro 
through  the  streets  of  Jerusalem,"  cries  the  young  envoy 
delivering  the  message  of  the  Lord,  and  throwing  out  his 
hands  to  those  streets  with  all  their  visible  crowds,  "  and 
see  now,  and  know,  and  seek  in  the  broad  places  thereof, 
if  ye  can  find  a  man,  if  there  be  any  that  executeth  judg- 
ment, that  seeketh  the  truth  ;  and  I  will  pardon  it."  Once 
more   the   argument   of  Abraham   is   brought   forth,  recalled 


CHAP.  II  JEREMIAH  247 

in  its  impassioned  prayer  and  pleading  to  his  descendants. 
"  If  ye  can  find  a  man  ...  I  will  pardon  it."  "  Surely," 
the  prophet  replies  in  his  pleading,  "  these  are  poor  ;  they 
are  foolish :  for  they  know  not  the  way  of  the  Lord,  nor 
the  judgment  of  their  God.  I  will  get  me  to  the  great  men, 
and  will  speak  to  them  ;  for  they  have  known  the  way  of 
the  Lord,  and  the  judgment  of  their  God."  But  it  is  a 
hopeless  quest  :  as  it  was  in  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  so  it 
is  now  with  Jerusalem.  Even  now,  at  this  last  moment,  the 
promise  and  the  offer  are  repeated.  If  you  can  find  a 
man  : — but  the  man  is  not  to  be  found. 

Is  there,  then,  no  longer  the  remnant,  the  seven 
thousand  who  had  not  bowed  the  knee  to  Baal  ?  These 
remain  always,  but  hidden  in  the  depths,  in  the  secret 
places — timid  souls,  perhaps,  overcome  by  the  tide  of  wicked- 
ness, without  influence  in  the  guidance  of  the  people, 
without  courage  or  strength  to  strive  against  the  over- 
whelming current.  But  the  nation  as  a  nation  hurries  on, 
without  thought  of  her  high  commission,  her  place  in  the 
world,  feasting  in  the  gay  despair  of  the  epicurean  because 
there  is  no  hope  and  to-morrow  we  die  :  or  striving  in  the 
eagerness  of  statesmanship  at  its  wits'  end,  to  find  some 
foreign  prop  against  the  invader  :  or  with  a  still  more  char- 
acteristic sordid  instinct,  the  hunger  of  that  grasping  greed 
and  love  of  acquisition  which  was  to  be  their  reproach  to 
the  latest  ages,  spoiling  every  man  his  needy  friend,  his 
starving  brother,  to  add  a  little  more  to  his  guilty  stores. 
Zcdekiah,  perhaps,  the  last  King  of  Israel,  was  one  of  that 
remnant,  too  weak  to  stem  the  tide,  sitting  helpless  in  his 
palace,  sorrowfully  extending  a  little  private  protection  to 
the  prophet,  unable  to  contend  with  the  princes  who  sur- 
rounded him — a  good  man  in  all  his  innermost  relations, 
but  not  the  Man  :  not  one  who  could  stand  up  strong  against 
a  host,  and  hold  the  standard  of  justice  and  truth. 

We  arc,  however,  when  the  prophet's  mission  begins, 
still  far  from  that  tragic  moment :  for  once  more  it  is  in 
a  time  of  partial  prosperity  that  it  is  first  proclaimed.  The 
young  king  had  but  lately  made  his  reformation,  and  in  the 


THE  PROPHETS 


restoration  and  clearing  out  of  the  Temple  the  books  of  the 
law  had  been  found.  It  is  the  opinion  of  the  critics,  as  has 
been  said,  in  the  elaborate  system  of  pious  frauds  by  which  they 
conceive  the  religion  of  the  Jews  to  have  been  instituted,  that 
Jeremiah  wrote  this  book  of  the  law,  and  that  Hilkiah,  the  high 
priest,  found  it  where  he  had  himself  hid  it,  a  fiction  of  the  most 
elaborate  character,  outdoing  any  simple  device  of  the  kind 
that  the  world  has  known.  There  have  been  such  attempts 
made  in  our  own  century :  but  Mr.  Ireland  who  invented  a 
new  play  for  Shakespeare  had  short  shrift,  and  even  the 
hapless  Chatterton  though  a  poet  could  carry  on  his  decep- 
tion but  a  very  short  time.  But  this  trick  was  perfectly 
successful  the  German  gentlemen  think,  though  Jeremiah 
must  have  been  still  a  youth,  not  recovered  out  of  his  first 
fright  and  panic,  when  he  accomplished  this  great  piece  of 
work  if  their  guess  was  correct :  besides  being  a  young 
cheat  and  dishonourable  lad  without  any  truth  in  him, 
though  his  entire  life  was  overshadowed,  as  we  know,  by  his 
devotion  to  truth  and  denunciation  of  falsehood.  Such 
arguments,  however,  being  only  those  of  nature  and  of  all 
literary  as  well  as  human  analogy,  have  no  effect  upon  the 
theory  which  is  built  upon  a  foregone  conclusion. 

But  there  is  not  the  slightest  reason,  according  to 
nature  and  the  sole  record  which  even  touches  upon  the 
subject,  to  believe  that  Jeremiah  was  a  hypocrite  and 
impostor,  and  that  his  supposed  zeal  for  truth  and  purity 
was  an  elaborate  falsehood,  the  worst  and  most  dreadful 
of  lies.  To  think  of  such  a  steadfastly-maintained,  never- 
avowed  deception,  in  the  presence  of  that  sad  and  persecuted 
man,  oppressed  by  the  weight  of  his  prophetic  burden, 
struggling  against  it,  remonstrating  with  his  God  who  had 
made  him  a  messenger  of  woe,  yet  carried  on  by  the  impulse 
within  him  which  was  more  strong  than  all  the  rebellions  of 
the  flesh — is  a  sin  against  every  indication  of  humanity,  a 
shameful  wrong  and  insult  to  an  honourable  name.  For 
there  is  neither  prevarication  nor  sign  of  deceit  in  this 
sorrowful  soul.  He  is  not  sympathetic  like  Isaiah,  he  does 
not  make  the  heart  beat  or  the  spirit  rise.      It  is  sometimes 


CHAP,  n  JEREMIAH  249 

a  complaint  of  exquisite  pathos  which  falls  from  his  lips, 
a  lament  that  penetrates  to  the  very  soul  ;  but  it  is  always 
a  lament,  always  a  voice  of  sorrow  with  which  he  speaks, 
touching  the  saddest  minor  keys,  breathing  forth  the  melody 
of  desolation,  the  hush,  the  faltering  dying  notes  of  despair. 
It  is  true  that  he,  too,  knows  of  the  better  hope,  the  Deliverer 
who  is  to  come,  the  final  triumph  :  and  here  and  there  bursts 
forth  into  a  solitary  shout  of  the  great  Branch  of  David,  the 
King  who  shall  reign  and  prosper,  whose  name  shall  be 
called  the  Lord  our  Righteousness :  but  he  has  not  the 
heart  to  dwell  upon  that  prospect.  He  knows  of  it  to  save 
him  from  despair  ;  but  his  spirit  has  not  elasticity  enough  to 
rise  to  the  height  of  a  triumphant  proclamation.  He  is  made  to 
perform  one  symbolical  act  by  buying  a  field  from  his  cousin, 
to  prove  his  absolute  faith  in  the  return  of  the  captivity. 
And  he  proclaims  over  again  the  destruction  of  Babylon 
with  the  same  minute  and  vivid  touches  of  reality  which 
we  have  already  seen  :  but  his  first  message  is  to  his  kindred, 
a  message  of  woe. 

When  he  stood  in  the  gate,  shortly  after  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Temple,  it  was  the  most  tremendous  indictment 
which  with  his  still  tremulous  voice  he  proclaimed  against 
Jerusalem  :  "  Will  ye,"  he  cries,  always  in  the  name  of  his 
Master,  "  steal,  murder,  and  commit  adultery,  and  swear  falsely, 
and  burn  incense  to  Baal,  and  walk  after  other  gods  whom 
ye  know  not ;  and  come  and  stand  before  me  in  this  house, 
which  is  called  by  my  name,  and  say.  We  are  delivered  to 
do  all  these  abominations?  Is  this  house,  which  is  called 
by  my  name,  become  a  den  of  robbers  in  your  eyes  ?  Be- 
hold, even  I  have  seen  it,  saith  the  Lord."  He  resumes 
with  stern  and  simple  details  which  again  bring  before  us  a 
glimpse  of  the  idolatrous  city  as  if  cut  with  a  diamond. 
"  Seest  thou  not  what  they  do  in  the  cities  of  Judah  and  in 
the  streets  of  Jerusalem  ?  The  children  gather  wood,  and 
the  fathers  kindle  the  fire,  and  the  women  knead  the  dough, 
to  make  cakes  to  the  queen  of  heaven,  and  to  pour  out  drink 
offerings  to  other  gods,  that  they  may  provoke  me  to  anger. 
Do  they  provoke   me  to  anger  ?   saith   the   Lord  :    do  they 


250  THE  PROPHETS  part  h 

not  provoke  themselves  to  the  confusion  of  their  own  faces?" 
The  stern  gravity  of  the  rebuke  that  follows,  the  sorrowful 
indignation  of  the  Almighty  Spectator,  before  whom  this 
constant  human  mistake  of  His  great  intention  is  perpetually 
recurring,  is  in  the  highest  tone  of  remonstrance,  worthy  the 
Divine  speaker  if  ever  human  words  were. 

"  For  I  spake  not  unto  your  fathers,  nor  commanded  them 
in  the  day  that  I  brought  them  out  of  Egypt,  concerning 
burnt  offerings  or  sacrifices :  but  this  thing  commanded  I 
them,  saying,  Obey  my  voice,  and  I  will  be  your  God,  and  ye 
shall  be  my  people  :  and  walk  ye  in  all  the  ways  that  I  have 
commanded  you,  that  it  may  be  well  with  you." 

How  often  had  these  remonstrances  been  made  already  ? 
What  to  God  were  the  cattle  on  a  thousand  hills  ?  the  smoke 
of  their  sacrifices  was  an  offence  to  Him  being  devoid  of  all 
meaning.  What  were  these  rites,  without  the  heart  to  under- 
stand and  to  obey  ?  And  now  that  the  service  of  God  was 
performed  as  if  He  were  one  among  many,  to  share  the 
superstitious  observances  of  a  people  from  whom  all  know- 
ledge of  a  spiritual  worship  had  departed,  the  last  word  of 
warning  had  been  spoken.  And  now  nothing  but  doom 
remained  behind. 

This  doom  it  was  Jeremiah's  mournful  mission  to  pro- 
claim without  ceasing.  It  was  not  with  his  own  will  that  he 
did  it.  Again  and  again  does  he  mourn  his  cruel  fate, 
cursing  the  hour  that  he  was  born,  upbraiding  God  himself 
for  having  put  this  yoke  upon  his  shoulders,  with  that  wild 
audacity  of  suffering  which  breaks  forth  so  often  in  the  weak. 
"  O  Lord,  thou  hast  deceived  me,  and  I  was  enticed,"  i.e.  to 
deliver  this  painful  unwilling  message,  he  cries  :  "  thou  art 
stronger  than  I,  and  hast  prevailed.  I  said  I  will  not  make 
mention  of  him,  nor  speak  any  more  in  his  name.  But  his 
word  was  in  mine  heart  as  a  burning  fire  shut  up  in  my 
bones,  and  I  was  weary  of  forbearing,  and  I  could  not  stay." 
Thus,  notwithstanding  all  dark  looks,  all  threats  directed 
against  him,  and  no  doubt  the  restraints  which  his  respect- 
able kindred  both  in  Jerusalem  and  Anathoth  would  attempt 
to  enforce,  nothing  stayed  the  melancholy  messenger,  who  was 


CHAP.  II  JEREMIAH  251 

there  in  all  the  assemblies  of  the  people,  a  shadow  upon 
every  brief  rejoicing,  an  unyielding  monitor  monotonous  in 
the  continued  warning,  which  his  melancholy  countenance 
uttered  even  when  his  voice  was  silent  Sometimes  he  calls 
upon  the  pastoral  people  coming  up  to  the  markets  with 
their  produce  to  abandon  their  tents  and  villages  and  collect 
in  the  defenced  cities  :  sometimes  he  describes  the  progress 
of  that  fierce  nation  from  the  north  coming  up  from  Dan 
with  a  snorting  of  horses,  till  the  whole  land  trembles  :  some- 
times imitates  the  wild  and  confused  cries  of  those  upon 
whom  this  sudden  destruction  falls :  sometimes  describes  in 
words  of  fire  the  desolate  country  without  inhabitants,  the 
land  lying  waste,  the  silent  evacuated  houses,  the  fields  in 
which  there  is  no  voice  of  cattle,  the  streets  from  which  every 
sound  of  life  has  fled.  "  For  the  land  shall  be  desolate." 
And  sometimes  as  he  takes  his  stand  not  far  from  the  Temple 
gates,  whence  all  the  people  coming  and  going  must  have 
heard  the  voice  which  had  become  so  familiar,  Jeremiah  pours 
forth  his  lament  with  that  individual  voice,  with  that  strong 
cry  of  personal  anguish,  which  is  the  most  convincing  of  all  : 

Oh  that  my  head  were  waters. 

And  mine  eyes  a  fountain  of  tears, 

That  I  might  weep  day  and  night 

For  the  shiin  of  the  daughter  of  my  people  I 

Oh  that  I  had  in  the  wilderness 

A  lodging  place  of  wayfaring  men  ; 

That  I  might  leave  my  people, 

And  go  from  them  ! 

For  they  be  all  adulterers. 

An  assembly  of  treacherous  men. 

It  is  no  wonder,  perhaps,  that  the  men  of  Anathoth,  when 
the  mournful  prophet  went  down  to  his  father's  farm  and 
terrified  the  herdsmen  and  labourers  with  this  cry  of  evil  to 
come,  should  have  risen  up  against  him  :  nor  is  it  wonderful 
that  the  authorities  of  Jerusalem  interfered  to  prevent  the 
proclamation  of  the  message,  not  only  at  the  gate  of  the 
Temple  which  even  a  cynical  non-believer  or  all-believer  which 
was  much  the  same  thing — would  allow  to  be  privileged  ground : 
— but  at  the  city  gates  where  the  crowd  resorted,  by  which  the 


252  THE  PROPHETS 


king  went  and  came,  and  even  at  the  very  palace  doors  where 
his  presence  could  not  be  ignored.  If  it  were  not  that  the 
habit  of  hearing  him  brought  in  the  indifference  of  familiarity, 
what  could  be  so  intolerable  as  that  perpetual  promise  of  evil, 
"  Except  ye  amend  "  ?  while  to  amend  was  the  last  thing  this 
doomed  people  thought  of  They  had  evidently  made  every- 
thing right  as  they  thought  with  God  by  giving  Him  his 
share  with  the  others,  the  lowing  cattle,  the  bleating  sheep, 
the  smoke  of  the  sacrifice — coarse  primitive  worship,  not  so 
refined  as  that  gayer  service  of  the  queen  of  heaven  to  whom 
cakes  and  dried  oflTerings  sufficed,  but  still  an  easy  tribute 
enough  to  keep  Him  in  good  humour  since  that  was  what 
He  required.  And  this  fellow  for  ever  aboiit  the  streets, 
hindering  every  function  of  life,  stirring  up  old  superstitions 
among  the  common  people,  mutely  assented  to  by  the 
devotees  who  shut  themselves  up  in  their  houses  and  took 
no  share  in  public  life — must  have  become  insupportable  to  the 
rulers  of  Jerusalem.  He  was  a  man,  too,  of  rank  who  could 
not  be  hustled  away,  the  son  of  an  exalted  personage,  with 
many  friends  and  connections  who,  though  they  might  not 
approve  of  him,  would  be  irritated  by  any  disrespect  paid  to 
him.  And  it  is  easy  to  imagine  that  the  sight  of  his  white 
figure  in  the  priest's  dress,  conspicuous  amid  the  many- 
coloured  crowd,  would  be  a  sight  at  once  exasperating  and 
alarming  to  every  official.  To  see  the  passengers  arrested 
in  the  open  space  outside  the  gate,  the  country  folk  open- 
mouthed  with  wonder,  the  ear  even  of  the  officer  of  the  guard 
himself  caught  by  that  voice :  to  trace  him  through  the 
streets  to  the  convenient  place  where  he  would  pause  and 
pour  forth  his  burden,  to  know  that  no  hour  and  no  place 
was  safe  from  these  continual  interruptions,  must  have  been 
more  than  ordinary  patience  could   bear. 

If  they  hoped  to  make  any  lengthened  defence  when  the 
invasion  did  come  which  everybody  knew  must  come,  then 
these  perpetual  auguries  of  evil  would  steal  the  very  heart 
out  of  the  defenders  of  Jerusalem  :  if  they  desired  to  forget  as 
long  as  possible  the  inevitable  danger,  and  to  snatch  a  fearful 
joy  from  the  ominous  tranquillity  while   it   lasted,  the  sound 


CHAP,  n  JEREMIAH  253 

of  that  prophetic  lamentation  would  disturb  every  feast. 
Who  could  touch  the  careless  viol  and  sing  of  love  or  war 
when  every  passing  breeze  brought  in  the  echo  of  that  other 
voice  whose  song  was  nothing  but  woe  ?  who  could  make 
up  his  books  in  peace,  and  lay  aside  his  pledges,  and  count 
his  riches,  while  at  his  very  threshold  the  prophet  might  be 
standing?  The  wonder  is  not  that  he  was  seized  and 
punished  at  last,  but  that  his  freedom  from  insult  and  injury 
lasted  so  long. 

It  is  only  after  we  have  been  made  to  hear  the  long 
scries  of  prophecies,  modified,  indeed,  in  word  by  the 
repeated  promise  of  salvation  should  repentance  be  shown 
— which,  however,  the  prophet  does  not  expect  in  his 
sorrowful  experience  of  the  temper  and  habits  of  his  people : 
and  after  we  have  seen  him  for  years  vaguely  appearing  at 
city  or  at  Temple  gateway,  proclaiming  his  message  :  that 
he  comes  fully  forth  into  the  historical  record  in  a  manner 
confusing  indeed  to  the  reader  who  finds  himself  plunged 
into  the  quick-recurring  scenes  of  a  chronicle  without  chrono- 
logy and  full  of  broken  sequences,  chapter  xx.  relating  events 
which  occurred  four  years  later  than  those  that  arc  set  forth 
in  chapter  xxvii.,  and  so  forth.  The  greater  part  of  these 
melancholy  prophecies  had  been  uttered,  wonderful  to 
imagine,  in  the  reign  of  the  good  King  Josiah  who  had,  no 
doubt,  used  all  the  force  of  his  influence  and  authority  to 
bring  about  the  desired  reformation,  yet  with  little  more 
effect  upon  the  people  than  to  turn  their  idolatry  into  an 
enlarged  pantheistic  system,  taking  in  the  God  of  their 
fathers  as  one  among  the  crowd  of  deities  who  peopled 
their  harsh  Olympus.  But  when  Josiah,  happily  for  himself, 
found  an  honourable  death  in  battle  at  Megiddo,  a  new  age, 
a  changed  cycle,  began.  That  king  was  the  last  of  the 
kings  of  Judah  with  any  power  or  consistent  kingdom  worthy 
of  the  name.  Others  had  paid  tribute  and  acknowledged 
servitude.  Josiah  himself  was  probably  no  better  than  a 
vassal  of  the  Assyrian,  and  when  he  rashly  met  the  forces 
of  Egypt  did  so  in  a  chivalrous  fidelity  to  his  bond,  to  stem 
the  tide  of  that  other  great  empire  which  was  threatening 


254  THE  PROPHETS 


his  suzerain.  But  after  him  the  whole  economy  of  the 
Hebrew  kingdom  was  in  solution  :  the  young  sons  whom 
he  had  left  behind  to  meet  the  emergency  were  wholly 
unfit  to  face  its  difficulties,  and  probably  the  wisest  and 
bravest  of  his  counsellors  and  champions  perished  with  him 
at  Megiddo,  leaving  Judah  as  Scotland  was  after  Flodden, 
defenceless,  at  the  mercy  of  the  conqueror.  The  son  who 
succeeded  him,  Jehoahaz,  not  the  eldest  in  age  but  probably 
the  child  of  a  mother  of  superior  rank,  had  a  precarious 
reign  of  three  months  during  which  time  Pharaoh  Necho  be- 
came master  of  the  kingdom  and  city,  exacted  an  enormous 


indemnity,  and  dethroned  and  carried  off  the  youth  (old 
enough,  however,  at  twenty-three  to  have  made  a  stand  for 
his  country  had  it  been  in  him),  raising  an  elder  brother 
under  the  name  of  Jehoiakim  to  the  insignificant  throne. 

This  period  of  trouble  and  misery  has  little  place 
in  the  record  :  the  city  was  a  scene  of  disorder,  fugitives 
coming  and  going,  the  unhappy  remnants  of  the  army 
who  had  fled  from  Megiddo :  and  conflicting,  miserable 
discussions  going  on,  whether  to  attempt  any  resistance  to 
the  invader  or  to  leave  him  to  enter  at  his  will — which  is 
evidently  what  was  done  in  the  want  of  any  fit  head  or 
trustworthy  defence.  But  Jehoiakim  had  a  little  more 
promise,  it  would  appear,  of  stability :  and  sad  though  it 
must  have  been  to  see  the  captives  who  were  led  away  in 
the  train  of  the  conquering  Pharaoh,  the  unfortunate  young 
king  and  so  many  of  his  princes  and  attendants  as  that 
potentate  chose — yet  there  must  have  been  a  great  movement 


CHAP.  II  JEREMIAH  255 

of  relief  in  the  national  breast  when  the  last  dark  Egyptian 
band  disappeared,  and  the  exhausted  and  bereaved  country 
was  left  a  little  to  itself.  What  would  the  new  king  do? 
Would  he  prove  another  Josiah  and  lead  a  more  effectual 
reformation  ?  Would  he  at  last  carry  the  people  back 
towards  Him  in  whom  the  only  hope  of  Israel  lay  ?  or 
would  he  relapse  into  the  painful  intrigues  of  a  small  state 
toppling  over  towards  destruction,  clutching  desperately  again 
at  the  skirts  of  Egypt,  which  was  so  little  like  to  confront 
the  hordes  of  the  north  unless  it  served  her  own  purpose,  to 
rescue  any  dependent  principality  ? 

It  must  have  very  soon  been  proved  to  the  eyes  of 
those  who  were  eagerly  on  the  outlook  for  any  sign  of 
penitence  that  Jehoiakim  had  no  heroic  intentions.  And  in 
the  beginning  of  his  reign,  Jeremiah,  silent  for  a  time  as 
may  be  supposed  in  the  grief  of  his  heart,  occupied  with 
the  mourning  for  Josiah,  chanting  the  lamentation  which  he 
made  over  the  fallen  king,  "  the  breath  of  our  nostrils,  the 
anointed  of  the  Lord,"  or  unable  to  gain  a  hearing  in  the 
anarchy  of  those  three  terrible  months  before  the  Egyptians 
had  marched  away  :  comes  forth  once  more  to  the  court  of 
the  Lord's  house  to  address  the  people  coming  up  to  wor- 
ship and  call  upon  them  again  to  repent.  His  message 
this  time  is  like  a  stroke  with  a  spear,  sharp,  sudden,  and 
penetrating.  God  commands  him  not  to  diminish  a  word 
of  the  doom  he  is  commissioned  to  pronounce.  Once 
more  the  opportunity  is  held  out,  the  call  given  to  obe- 
dience and  reformation.  But  "  if  ye  will  not  hearken,"  cries 
the  prophet,  throwing  forth  his  arms  towards  the  historic 
Temple,  so  often  spoiled,  so  often  restored,  polluted,  and 
desecrated,  yet  by  this  time  certainly  the  pride  even  of 
those  who  defiled  it,  a  national  distinction  and  glory : 
"  If  ye  will  not  hearken  ...  I  will  make  this  house  like 
Shiloh,  I  will  make  this  city  a  curse  among  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth."  The  crowd  had  no  difificulty  in  understand- 
ing his  words.  It  was  from  Shiloh  that  the  Ark  had  been 
carried  forth  to  procure,  like  a  fetish,  the  triumph  of  the 
Israelites   who  had   come  to   look   upon   it  as  the   heathens 


256  THE  PROPHETS 


looked  upon  their  gods  of  wood  and  stone :  it  had  been 
disastrously  lost  in  the  lost  battle  :  and  Shiloh  had  become 
Ichabod,  a  place  from  whence  the  glory  had  departed.  This 
prophecy,  so  appalling,  so  definite,  so  clearly  comprehensible, 
produced  an  immediate  tumult  in  the  crowd  :  they  were  no 
longer  under  the  sway  of  the  pious  King  who  protected  the 
prophets  ;  they  were  no  longer  afraid  to  raise  their  voices  or 
their  heads  in  the  presence  of  their  victors.  Masters  for 
the  moment  of  their  own  city,  free  to  do  what  they  would, 
with  many  an  unsettled  score  of  resentment  against  this 
prophet  of  evil,  the  first  outcry  of  the  angry  priests  against 
him  lit  up  the  excitement  of  the  people  into  fury.  How 
dared  he  to  say  that  this  house  should  be  as  Shiloh  ?  The 
priests  seized  upon  the  audacious  speaker,  the  angry  crowd 
clustered  round  him.  "  Death"  was  the  universal  cry,  the  fierce 
impulse  of  the  uncontrollable  multitude,  their  first  word  as 
soon  as  they  had  the  power,  as  when  hundreds  of  years  later 
they  cried  "  Crucify  him."  The  noise  of  the  sudden  tumult 
reached  the  "  princes,"  the  secular  authorities  of  the  country, 
as  they  came  up  from  the  king's  house,  perhaps  from  a 
palace  on  the  site  of  Solomon's  palace  within  the  enclosure  of 
the  Temple,  perhaps  from  the  city  of  David  where  his  ancient 
house  had  been  :  most  probably  the  former,  where  they 
would  be  near  at  hand  and  no  tumult  could  escape  their 
notice.  They  went  and  took  their  seats  in  the  entry  of  the 
new  gate,  which  was  the  eastern  or  sun  gate,  perhaps  that 
now  called  the  Golden  Gate  (so  carefully  built  up  to 
prevent  the  entrance  of  Messiah,  in  modern  Mohammedan 
times),  and  called  to  the  rioters  to  bring  the  prisoner 
before  them.  What  had  he  done  ?  The  priests  answered 
with  an  outcry  "  He  is  worthy  to  die  ;  for  he  hath  prophesied 
against  this  city,  as  ye  (the  cloud  of  witnesses  round)  have 
heard  with  your  ears."  Jeremiah  answered  for  himself, 
undaunted  before  those  grave  judges  in  whose  hands,  at 
least,  he  was  safer  than  in  those  of  the  enraged  mob.  "  The 
Lord  sent  me  to  prophesy  against  this  house  and  against 
this  people  all  the  words  ye  have  heard.  Therefore  now 
amend   your  ways  and  your  doings,  and   obey  the  voice  of 


CHAf.  II  JEREMIAH  257 

the  Lord  your  God  ;  and  the  Lord  will  repent  Him  of  the 
evil  that  He  hath  pronounced  against  you.  As  for  me, 
behold,  I  am  in  your  hand  :  do  with  me  as  seemeth  meet 
and  right  to  you," 

When  he  had  thus  seized  the  opportunity  to  repeat  his 
message,  he  awaited,  with  a  courage  which  could  scarcely 
have  been  looked  for  from  his  downcast  and  heavy  spirit, 
the  decision  of  his  judges  who  were  not  always  so  merciful 
to  him  as  now.  They  were,  perhaps,  alarmed  at  the  thought 
of  how  far  the  popular  rage  might  go  were  it  to  be  per- 
mitted such  a  victim,  and  they  pronounced  the  prophet 
innocent :  "  for  he  hath  spoken  to  us  in  the  name  of  the 
Lord  our  God."  In  this  they  were  backed  up  by  certain 
"  elders  of  the  people,"  tribunes  one  may  suppose  of  the 
humbler  sort,  old  men  who  had  seen  other  such  sights,  who 
reminded  the  crowd  how  Micah  the  Morasthite  had  pro- 
phesied in  the  days  of  Hezekiah  that  Zion  should  be  as  a 
ploughed  field  and  Jerusalem  as  heaps,  yet  had  not  been 
silenced  or  punished,  but  on  the  contrary  turned  many 
people  to  repentance.  Was  it  some  old  sage  nearly  a 
century  old,  at  the  last  flicker  of  mortal  life,  who  came 
tottering  through  the  crowd  from  where  he  had  been 
sunning  himself  on  the  steps  of  the  Temple,  to  tell  that 
tale,  as  a  thing  he  could  him.sclf  recollect  ?  At  all  events 
Jeremiah's  protectors  were  more  powerful  than  those  who 
were  against  him,  and  for  the  time  he  went  free. 

After  this  events  would  seem  to  have  followed  each 
other  quickly  in  the  prophet's  life  and  in  that  of  the  doomed 
nation.  It  was  still  early  in  Jehoiakim's  reign  when  Jeremiah 
was  bidden  to  use  for  the  first  time  the  symbolism  so 
common  with  the  prophets.  His  teaching  up  to  this  time 
had  been  confined  to  words  alone :  now  he  was  to  employ 
one  of  the  most  trenchant  images  ever  held  forth  as  a  picture 
before  the  eyes  of  the  unlearned.  He  was  commanded  to 
go  down  to  the  potter's  house  to  watch  that  most  interesting 
and  oldest  of  all  industries.  So  bold  and  so  telling  is  the 
simile  that  it  is  impossible  to  see  now  that  operation,  so 
little  changed,  the  lump  of  clay  in   the  potter's  hand,  the 

s 


258  THE  PROPHETS 


flying  rustle  of  his  wheel,  the  absolute  power  he  has  over 
his  material,  making  one  vessel  to  honour  and  another  to 
dishonour,  without  an  almost  awe  of  the  simple  and  beauti- 
ful labour  so  extraordinarily  adapted  to  the  metaphor,  more 
conspicuous  and  convincing  than  any  force  of  words,  the 
oldest  of  all  human  crafts,  which  no  new  invention  has  ever 
done  away  with.  The  potters  carried  on  their  labours  in  the 
opening  of  the  valley  towards  the  south  where  Hinnom  and 
Jehoshaphat"  join.  Was  this  local  habitation  perhaps  a  relic  of 
the  time  when  the  Phoenicians  formed  their  colony  at  Siloam, 
bringing  with  them  all  the  plastic  arts  ?  for  the  sheds  of  the 
potter  must  have  filled  the  declivity  at  the  foot  of  the  village 
on  its  rocky  shelves.  To  be  sure  the  art  of  the  potter  is  too 
primitive  and  universal  to  be  introduced  by  strangers,  and  the 
presence  of  the  necessary  clay  and  the  pools  close  at  hand  are 
enough  to  account  for  the  workshops  on  that  particular  spot. 
Jeremiah  came  from  the  Temple,  probably  by  that 
new  gate  where  he  had  just  been  tried  for  his  life,  and 
down  the  slopes  of  Moriah  to  where  pleasant  Kedron 
ran  in  the  bottom  of  the  valley,  following  the  stream  to 
the  southern  end  where  Absalom's  tower  rose  up  to  point 
the  way.  No  doubt  there  were  devout  followers  who  would 
not  miss  a  movement  of  the  prophet,  who  would  point  to 
each  other  the  way  he  had  taken  and  go  after  him  :  and 
no  doubt  also  angry  enemies  eager  to  catch  him  in  his  talk, 
and  devoted  in  hate  as  the  other  in  love  to  every  trace  of 
his  footsteps.  There  could  be  no  more  pleasant  walk  about 
Jerusalem  than  that  path  by  the  purling  of  the  little  river 
under  the  olive-trees:  Olivet  rising  gently  green  on  one 
side,  the  slopes  of  Moriah  crowfied  with  the  fortifications 
and  the  shining  roofs  and  towers  of  temple  and  palace,  on 
the  other.  But  it  is  scarcely  possible  that  Jeremiah  can 
have  had  a  great  audience  in  that  spot  so  far  out  of  the  town. 
His  sad  musing  would  be  half  to  himself,  a  conning  over, 
perhaps,  of  the  lesson  to  be  proclaimed  after  to  the  people 
in  their  throngs  at  the  public  gate  :  but  it  was  impressed 
upon  the  memories  of  these  few  followers  by  the  significant 
vision,  the  symbolical  work  carried  on  before  their  eyes. 


CHAP.  11  JEREMIAH  259 

"  O  house  of  Israel,  cannot  I  do  with  you  as  this  potter  ? 
saith  the  Lord.  Behold,  as  is  the  clay  in  the  potter's  hand, 
so  are  ye  in  my  hand,  O  house  of  Israel."  While  he  mused 
and  spoke  he  must  have  become  aware  of  the  other  followers, 
not  those  of  love,  who  whispered  together  in  their  indignation, 
listening  keenly  to  make  his  words  an  occasion  of  ruin  and 
destruction  to  him,  thrusting  their  heads  over  the  shoulders  of 
Baruch  and  his  companions  that  they  might  hear  everything, 
and  hurry  with  their  report  of  treachery  to  the  king.  Did 
Jeremiah  take  up  the  earthenware  bottle  from  where  the 
potter  had  thrown  it,  with  its  twisted  neck  or  imperfect  form 
unfit  for  use,  and  look  back  to  call  "  the  ancients  of  the  people, 
and  the  ancients  of  the  priests,"  the  old  men  born  in  better 
days,  who  most  probably  were  his  friends  and  the  salt  of 
Israel,  to  witness  this  final  sign  of  doom  ?  or  had  they  by 
this  time  heard  where  he  was  and  divined  a  more  than 
usually  important  message,  and  come  out  after  him  drawing 
with  them  the  usual  accompaniment  of  the  idle  crowd,  till 
the  valley  was  filled  with  the  representatives  of  the  nation, 
those  who  were  of  much  importance  and  those  who  were  of 
none,  all  eager  to  hear  what  he  would  .say  ? 

Jeremiah  was  well  aware  that  half  of  his  listeners  at  least 
were  hostile  to  him  :  but  that  made  no  difference  in  the 
message  which  he  pointed  .so  emphatically.  The  spot 
near  which  he  stood  was  already  accursed  ground,  for  the 
potters'  huts  were  at  but  a  small  distance  from  Tophet,  the 
lowest  point  of  the  valley,  the  place  in  which  Israel  had 
most  horribly  and  cruelly  sinned,  the  hell  on  earth  where 
Moloch's  bloody  altars  had  stood,  and  the  children  had  been 
pas.sed  through  the  fire.  Here  where  "the  blood  of  inno- 
cents "  had  been  poured  forth  filling  the  place  with  horror, 
.should  destruction  and  murder  come.  "  This  place  shall  no 
more  be  called  Tophet,  nor  the  valley  of  the  son  of  Hinnom, 
but  the  valley  of  slaughter."  Dreadful  enough  was  the 
former  name,  a  .synonym  for  the  darkest  hell,  the  bottomless 
pit :  but  more  dreadful  still  would  be  the  dark  valley  when 
filled  with  the  dishonoured  dead,  the  slain  whom  the  .soldiers 
of  Babylon  would  leave  in  heaps,  and  whom  the  miserable 


26o  THE  PROPHETS 


remnant  left  would  have  no  power  to  bury,  who  would  be 
consumed  by  wild  beasts  and  vultures  within  sight  of  their 
homes.  The  valley  of  slaughter  !  dark  Aceldama  with  its 
shadows  of  tombs,  a  fatal  slope  which  even  now  seems  to 
repulse  the  sunshine,  the  potter's  field  to  be  bought  there- 
after with  the  price  of  blood,  frowned  upon  them  where  they 
stood  to  listen  :  and  no  doubt  many  a  dread  memory  of 
scenes  already  witnessed  there  came  back  to  every  man's 
recollection.  And  then  the  prophet  dashed  the  bottle  from 
his  hand  upon  the  stones,  shattering  it  in  a  hundred  pieces, 
startling  every  careless  car,  if  careless  ears  were  there,  even 
in  that  eager  assembly,  to  attention.  "  Even  so  will  I  break 
this  people  and  this  city,  as  one  breaketh  a  potter's  vessel, 
that  cannot  be  made  whole  again."  The  symbol  was  stronger 
still  than  that  of  the  clay  which  the  potter  could  still,  while 
it  was  unbaked,  mould  into  a  better  shape,  crushing  it  in 
his  hands,  moistening  and  softening  it  to  be  capable  of 
another  form.  But  the  spoiled  thing  out  of  the  furnace  was 
capable  of  no  amendment :  to  dash  it  to  pieces  against  the 
stones  was  all  that  could  be  done  :  it  was  good  neither  for 
ornament  nor  use. 

After  the  fervour  and  passion  of  this  dreadful  message, 
weary  with  the  long  course  from  the  city,  the  lingering 
about  those  huts,  the  awe  and  terror  of  the  vision  which 
rose  before  his  eyes  as  he  proclaimed  it,  the  effort  of 
utterance :  Jeremiah  would  return  slowly  to  the  gate  and 
mount  the  green  ascent,  or  the  long  flights  of  steps  towards 
the  Temple,  in  which,  no  doubt,  was  the  chamber,  among  the 
dwellings  of  the  priests,  where  he  lived.  But  the  crowd 
had  melted  before  him,  and  many  a  lightfooted  messenger 
had  already  reached  the  courts  above  to  carry  news  of  this 
last  offence  of  so  many,  this  crowning  and  unequivocal  insult 
to  the  kingdom  and  the  hierarchy,  and  all  that  was  powerful 
in  Judah,  to  the  authorities  there.  So  bold  an  image  of 
destruction  had  never  been  ventured  upon  before.  It  was 
a  thing  to  strike  the  imagination  of  the  least  instructed, 
who  might  gape  at  the  prophet's  words  and  form  to  them- 
selves some  distorted  idea  of  his  meaning  as  is  the  habit  of 


JEREMIAH 


261 


the  ignorant,  but  who  could  not  mistake  the  simplicity  and 
force  of  that  sign.  The  high  priest,  perhaps,  was  absent, 
perhaps  unwilling  to  interfere  with  the  son  of  his  predecessor, 
a  kinsman  and  member  of  the  same  privileged  class  as 
himself:   but   the  second    in   rank,  the  deputy  high    priest. 


TlIK   VAI.I.KV    iiK    JEllUSIIAIMIAr  :     AStKN  r    IIV   MOKIAH 

Pashur,  the  son  of  Immer,  was  too  deeply  horrified  and 
affronted  to  stand  on  any  such  formula.  He  came  out, 
no  doubt,  to  see  the  train  that  followed  Jeremiah  from  the 
valley,  in  hot  indignation,  but  made  no  movement  until  the 
prophet  paused  again  "in  the  court  of  the  Lord's  house" 
and  began  to  repeat  his  prophecy.  "  Behold,  I  will  bring 
on  this  city  all  the  evil  that  I  have  pronounced  against  it." 


262  THE  PROPHETS 


Then  the  priest  could  contain  himself  no  longer.  He  gave 
the  order  to  seize  and  punish  the  prophet  of  woe.  "  Then 
Pashur  smote  Jeremiah."  This  would  apparently  indicate 
that,  transported  by  a  passion  of  resentment  to  hear  him- 
self and  all  the  ruling  party  thus  deiied,  he  inflicted  not 
only  the  shame  of  the  stocks  but  the  punishment  of  the 
lowest  offender,  the  forty  stripes  save  one,  upon  his  fellow- 
priest,  his  kinsman  whose  natural  rank  was  among  the 
highest  in  Judah.  If  as  appears  it  was  the  nephew  or 
brother  of  Jeremiah  who  was  the  high  priest  at  the  time, 
the  fury  of  his  deputy  is  the  more  extraordinary,  though, 
perhaps,  not  altogether  without  justification:  since  when  this 
strange  scene  occurred  the  force  of  Nebuchadnezzar  was 
approaching,  and  it  might  well  have  been  supposed  an 
offence  against  every  instinct  of  patriotism  thus  to  dishearten 
the  possible  defenders  of  the  city.  It  might  be,  indeed,  that 
Pashur's  rage  was  wholly  politic,  and  that  it  was  a  strong 
measure  to  discredit  Jeremiah  with  the  common  people  who 
had  been  so  deeply  impressed  by  the  parable  of  the  potter's 
vessel  that  was  intended,  rather  than  any  vengeance  upon 
himself 

This,  however,  was  the  end  of  the  first  portion  of 
Jeremiah's  career.  Was  it  while  he  sat  or  stood,  fixed  in 
that  pillory  of  disgrace  through  the  falling  of  the  day  and 
the  long  hours  of  the  night,  exposed  to  every  scoff  and  scorn 
that  vulgar  malice  could  put  upon  him,  he  who  had  been 
born  to  respect  and  honour — with  his  face  turned  towards 
that  peaceful  little  Anathoth  where  his  youth  had  been 
spent,  but  in  which  now  his  countrymen  and  friends  of 
boyhood,  the  village  folk  amid  whom  he  ought  to  have 
had  a  shelter  from  persecution,  had  turned  against  him  and 
conspired  to  kill  him — that  his  musings  took  the  form  of 
the  bitterest  self-pity  and  almost  complaint  against  his  God  ? 
"O  Lord,  thou  hast  deceived  me!"  What  words  more 
bitter  and  terrible  could  come  from  mortal  lips  ?  vSo  said 
Elijah  when  driven  into  the  wilderness,  standing  at  the 
opening  of  the  cave  which,  in  all  the  country  he  had  served 
and   loved,  was   his  sole  refuge.       "It   is  enough  ;    O   Lord 


CHAP.  11  JEREMIAH  21^1 

now  let  me  die,  for  I  am  not  better  than  my  fathers." 
"  Cursed  be  the  day  wherein  I  was  born,"  cries  the  later 
prophet.  The  ribald  crowd  has  been  about  him,  smiting 
his  cheek,  pulling  his  beard,  spitting  upon  him,  pouring  out 
gibe  and  insult.  And  when  they  disperse  to  their  rest, 
every  man  to  his  house,  and  the  prophet  is  left  alone  in 
the  chill  and  darkness  with  every  limb  aching  and  every 
hope  giving  way,  his  courage,  too,  deserts  him  and  he  feels 
that  he  can  bear  no  more.  Many  a  man  can  endure  suffer- 
ing whose  heart  sinks  at  the  touch  of  shame :  and  both 
were  here.  Jeremiah  was  a  man  whose  mind  was  full  of 
the  poetry  of  Israel,  the  literature  of  his  country  ;  and,  no 
doubt,  the  story  of  Job,  the  saddest  book  upon  record  except 
his  own,  came  now  to  his  recollection.  He  went  over  his 
whole  career  in  the  silence  of  those  dreadful  night  watches, 
his  call  to  the  prophetic  office,  his  first  disappointment  and 
deception  in  finding  that  the  message  he  had  to  proclaim 
was  met  with  derision  and  mockery,  his  attempt  to  keep 
silence,  the  fire  in  his  bones,  till  he  became  "  weary  with 
forbearing,  and  could  not  stay,"  the  rising  up  of  angry 
listeners  to  report  him  as  a  speaker  of  evil.  "  All  my 
familiars  watched  for  my  halting."  While  these  miser- 
able thoughts  circle  in  his  mind,  and  every  earthly  hope 
melts  from  him,  there  suddenly  sweeps  through  him  a 
breath  of  strong  consolation  driving  them  all  before  it. 
"  The  Lord  is  with  mc  as  a  mighty  terrible  one  " :  a  thought 
which  in  the  midst  of  his  trouble,  in  the  darkness  of  his 
abandonment  all  shamed  and  suffering  as  he  is,  makes  him 
break  forth  into  a  sudden  burst  of  joy  :  "  Sing  ye  to  the 
Lord,  praise  ye  the  Lord  :  for  he  hath  delivered  the  soul 
of  the  poor  from  the  hands  of  evildoers."  Did  the  watch- 
man on  the  walls  hear  this  sudden  cry  in  the  night  and 
come  down  to  listen — overawed  by  the  victim's  triumph, 
and,  perhaps,  not  knowing  that  when  that  momentary  shout 
had  died  on  the  night  air,  the  heart  of  the  lonely  man  sank 
again  in  his  bosom,  and  in  a  despondency  as  sudden  and 
instinctive  he  cursed  the  day  that  he  was  born  ? 

For  a  long  time  after  this  Jeremiah  appeared   no  more 


264  THE  PROPHETS 


in  Jerusalem.  He  had  filled  the  office  of  a  prophet  or 
rather  of  the  prophet  of  the  time,  for  more  than  twenty 
years.  That  there  were  other  prophesyings  going  on  during 
this  period  is  evident  and  referred  to  again  and  again,  some 
of  them,  as  those  of  Urijah  of  whom  there  is  a  confused  account, 
whom  Jehoiakim  pursued  to  Egypt  and  killed,  proclaiming 
the  same  message  as  that  of  Jeremiah  ;  some  like  Hananiah 
taking  the  other  side,  promising  victory  and  deliverance, 
false  prophets  whom  he  never  hesitated  to  .denounce  and 
upbraid.  Nay,  Pashur  himself  who  inflicted  upon  him  so 
much  pain  and  contumely,  would  seem  to.  have  been  one 
of  those  fair-weather  prophets,  flattering  king  and  people 
with  false  hopes.  But  of  all  these  busy  and  conflicting 
voices  we  know  none,  except  that  of  the  great  prophet  of 
doom,  the  one  poet -seer  whose  utterances  bring  the  very 
atmosphere  of  fate,  the  confusion  and  trouble  of  the  city  in 
peril,  the  conflicting  counsels,  the  hesitation  and  tumult, 
before  our  eyes. 

Where  it  was  that  Jeremiah  found  refuge  after  that 
terrible  night  of  dismay  we  have  no  indication.  "  I  am 
shut  up  :  I  cannot  go  into  the  house  of  the  Lord,"  he  says, 
but  no  more.  He  who  had  been  safe  for  so  many  years 
under  the  protection  of  King  Josiah,  and  the  prestige  of 
his  own  father's  name,  it  is  very  possible  that  the  ignominy 
of  his  present  position  was  more  than  he  could  bear.  His 
ministry  had  in  some  measure  changed  even  before  this 
turning-point.  From  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Jehoiakim 
he  had  been  a  man  discountenanced,  to  whom  other  methods 
than  those  of  argument  and  exhortation  were  necessary. 
He  had  been  forced  to  adopt  the  symbolical  teaching  which 
had  been  common  to  Isaiah  and  the  other  prophets,  the 
language  of  signs  and  pictures,  and  that  of  a  most  forcible 
kind.  He  had  put  a  yoke  upon  his  own  neck  and  bonds 
on  his  limbs  as  a  symbol  of  the  subjection  which  was  to 
come  not  only  upon  Judah  but  upon  all  the  surrounding 
nations.  He  had  brought  up  the  Rechabitcs  out  of  their 
dwelling  and  offered  them  wine  in  order  to  show  by  the 
contrast    of  their    faithfulness   to   their   ancestor's   command 


CHAP.  II  JEREMIAH  26$ 

how  unreasonable  was  the  disobedience  of  the  Hebrews. 
And  last  and  most  telling  of  all,  he  had  broken  the  potter's 
vessel,  the  bottle  of  brittle  earthenware,  to  show  how  the 
kingdom  of  David  was  to  be  dashed  to  pieces  on  the  very 
stones  which  formed  its  foundations.  Was  not  this  of 
itself  an  evidence  that  his  audience  had  ceased  to  be  the 
instructed  and  superior  classes,  and  had  come  to  consist 
more  and  more  of  the  mere  multitude  who  would  not  have 
understood  his  addresses,  but  who  comprehended  as  by  a 
flash  of  lightning  the  primitive  language  of  sign  and  parable  ? 
And  was  not  he  himself  at  the  gate,  standing  fixed  in  that 
disgraceful  pillory,  a  sign  above  all  others,  a  testimony  that 
Israel  would  not  hear,  nor  God's  people  consider,  that  the 
time  of  teaching,  of  warning,  of  reformation,  was  past,  and 
that  nothing  now  but  the  fulfilment  of  all  his  terrible  pro- 
phecies remained  ? 

Yet  one  effort  more,  however,  had  to  be  made.  Probably 
Jehoiakim  himself,  at  least  since  he  became  king,  had  heard 
but  little  of  what  Jeremiah  had  to  say.  It  is  true  that  the 
prophet  had  been  commanded  on  more  than  one  occasion 
to  stand  at  the  gate  by  which  the  king  went  out  and  came 
in,  probably  where  he  still  sat  to  administer  justice  on  set 
occasions  according  to  primitive  custom.  But  of  all  persons 
in  the  world  a  king  can  escape  most  easily  from  what  he 
does  not  wish  to  hear,  and  either  the  prophet  might  be 
hustled  away  or  the  king  break  up  the  session  to  escape 
from  that  persecuting  voice.  Thus  there  was  yet  one 
individual  in  Jerusalem  to  wiiom  it  might  be  supposed  that 
the  warning  and  appeal  to  repentance,  and  the  promi.sc  that 
was  invariably  attached  to  a  change  of  life,  had  not  fully 
come.  Jeremiah  was  therefore  instructed  to  write  all  his 
previous  prophecies  in  a  roll,  so  as  to  keep  a  definite 
record  of  God's  purpose  before  the  eyes  of  the  nation  :  "It 
may  be  that  the  house  of  Judah  will  hear  all  the  evil  that  I 
purpose  to  do  unto  them  :  that  they  may  return  every  man 
from  his  evil  way,  that  I  may  forgive  their  iniquity  and 
their  sin."  "  The  roll  of  the  book  "  in  which  Jeremiah  was 
to    write  is  one  of  the  most  primitive  forms  of  literature  : 


266  THE  PROPHETS 


yet  it  exists  to  this  day,  not  only  in  ancient  manuscripts, 
such  as  that  preserved  at  Shechem,  but  in  the  books  used 
in  the  Jewish  synagogue,  where,  I  believe,  the  roll,  wound 
upon  two  strong  pieces  of  wood  and  enclosed  in  a  case,  is 
still  the  form  under  which  the  law  and  the  prophets  are  read 
in  the  public  service.  The  parchment  was  accordingly  procured 
and  prepared,  and  the  prophet's  attendant  and  companion 
Baruch  began  to  write  "  from  the  mouth  of  Jeremiah "  we 
are  told — though  probably  with  the  aid  of  various  scattered 
transcriptions  of  what  had  from  the  beginning  of  his  career 
fallen  from  his  lips.  In  what  place  of  refuge  this  work  was 
carried  on,  whether  in  the  cave  outside  the  northern  wall  of 
the  city,  which  is  still  called  the  Grotto  of  Jeremiah,  or  in 
some  humble  house  at  Anathoth  or  other  shelter,  we  are 
not  told  ;  but  at  all  events,  while  it  was  going  on  the 
prophet  and  his  devoted  secretary  must  have  had  an  interval 
of  seclusion  and  peace. 

In  the  meantime,  while  these  last  most  significant  and 
momentous  utterances  were  being  collected,  events  had  hap- 
pened outside,  of  the  highest  importance,  and  which  gave  to 
them  all  a  double  force  of  meaning.  Nebuchadnezzar,  who 
had  just  won  the  battle  of  Lachmish  against  the  Egyptians, 
and  once  more  cowed  and  broken  that  great  power,  bringing 
dismay  to  all  in  Judea  who  had  trusted  to  an  alliance 
with  Egypt  for  their  preservation — had  passed  by  Jerusalem 
on  his  way  back  to  the  north,  exacting  yet  more  tribute,  a 
tribute  not  only  of  money  but  of  men,  and  carrying  away 
with  him  a  certain  number  of  captives  :  among  whom  were 
some  youths  and  children  of  royal  race,  especially  Daniel 
and  his  companions.  This  visit,  though  it  would  not  seem 
to  have  implied  any  fighting  or  to  have  been  of  a  cruel 
character — for  the  great  conqueror  meant  no  harm  to  his 
young  captives,  whom  he  placed  about  his  own  person  and 
advanced  to  much  promotion  and  honour — must  have  been 
a  symbolical  lesson  even  stronger  than  those  administered 
by  Jeremiah,  and  have  given  to  his  utterances  the  very 
sharpest  point,  the  most  vivid  justification.  It  was  probably 
after  this  visit  that  the  prophet  put   a   yoke  upon  his  own 


CHAP.  II  JEREMIAH  267 

neck  to  show  the  complete  subjugation  which  was  ordained 
for  his  people,  and  broke  the  bottle  in  the  valley  of  Hinnom. 
The  city  was  yet  all  agitated  by  the  passage  of  the  conquer- 
ing army,  the  country  torn  asunder  by  different  plans  for 
resisting  him  if  he  should  come  again,  and  by  speculations 
whether  Egypt,  crushed  by  such  a  blow,  was  still  fit  to  be 
trusted  to,  or  if  she  were  not  more  than  ever  the  bruised 
reed  incapable  of  affording  any  support,  which  the  mocking 
Assyrian  had  long  ago  declared  her  to  be.  But  no  party,  wc 
may  well  believe,  advocated,  as  Jeremiah  did,  the  policy  of 
throwing  aside  all  unavailing  resistance,  and  rendering  full 
submission  to  the  invader.  It  was  not  a  patriotic  policy  at 
the  first  glance.  But  we  may  believe,  at  the  same  time, 
from  the  evidence,  at  once  in  these  same  prophetic  addresses, 
and  in  the  national  records  which  point  to  a  state  of  utter 
disorganisation  and  incompetence,  that  Jerusalem  was  quite 
unfit  to  offer  any  serious  resistance,  and  that  any  feeble  and 
hopeless,  if  still  fierce  and  desperate,  stand  she  could  make 
would  result  only  in  deeper  downfall  and  overthrow. 

It  was  in  these  circumstances  then  that  the  roll  was 
prepared  and  written.  Jeremiah  was  "shut  up,"  in  hiding 
perhaps,  or  at  least  in  close  retirement,  avoiding  publicity. 
When  the  writing  was  complete  Baruch  took  the  roll 
and  went  up  to  the  Temple.  There  had  been  a  fast 
proclaimed,  a  day  of  humiliation,  most  probably  after 
that  visit  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  as  soon  as  the  conqueror's 
back  was  turned.  And  what  so  fit  for  such  an  occasion  as 
the  repetition  of  those  impassioned  addresses  in  which  de- 
liverance and  safety  were  still  promised  as-  the  recompense 
of  a  real  and  universal  repentance  ?  Baruch  went  first  to 
the  new  gate  in  which  so  many  of  the  incidents  of  this 
mournful  drama  took  place,  going  into  "  the  chamber  of 
Gcmariah  the  son  of  Shaphan  the  scribe,  in  the  higher  court," 
a  room  which  must  have  opened  upon  the  gateway,  either 
on  a  level  with  the  stream  of  people  coming  and  going,  or, 
perhaps,  over  the  arch  of  the  portal.  It  was  at  "  the  entry 
of  the  new  gate  "  which  all  the  worshippers  went  through  : 
and  no  doubt  the  sight  of  the  Babylonian  armies  which  had 


268  THE  PROPHETS 


passed  there,  only  as  it  were  the  other  day,  and  of  Nebuchad- 
nezzar himself,  the  great  conqueror,  had  deeply  impressed 
the  mind  of  the  crowd — as  well  as  that  sight,  more  moving 
than  any  threat  however  terrible,  of  the  train  of  captives 
following  his  steps,  and  among  them  the  royal  boys,  descend- 
ants of  good  King  Hezekiah  to  whom  this  very  misfortune 
had  been  prophesied.  It  would  seem  that  Gemariah  to 
whom  the  room  belonged  was  absent  in  attendance  on  the 
king  ;  and  when  his  son  Michaiah  heard  the  nature  of  the 
prophecies  which  Baruch  was  reading  he  hurried  down  to 
the  king's  house  to  inform  his  father  and  the  other  great 
men  of  the  court  what  was  being  done.  It  is  extraordinary 
that  these  prophecies  which  had  been  spoken  by  the  prophet 
himself  again  and  again  at  this  same  gate,  and  many  other 
places  all  over  Jerusalem,  should  now  be  treated  as  a  new 
and  alarming  thing.  One  wonders  if  the  princes  of  Judah 
had  become  accustomed  to  the  sight  of  him  and  passed  him 
lightly  by  as  a  man  half  mad  in  his  inspiration,  too  wild 
and  far  astray  from  common  life  to  call  for  serious  attention 
— and  if  this  sudden  appearance  of  a  book  read  aloud  as  if  it 
were  a  sacred  Thora,  a  book  of  the  law,  startled  them  as  by 
something  more  weighty,  not  to  be  neglected  ?  A  book 
is  a  thing  imposing  to  the  ignorant  even  now  when  there 
are  so  many  :  and  in  those  days  was,  no  doubt,  looked  upon 
with  awe  which  no  mere  speech  or  utterance  would  inspire. 

The  startled  rulers  sent  immediately  for  Baruch  that 
they  might  hear  what  the  manuscript  was.  Probably  the 
appearance  of  Baruch,  a  well-known  man  of  important 
position,  as  the  exponent  of  the  prophet's  views,  increased 
the  effect  of  this  new  and  alarming  departure  —  as  the 
appearance  of  a  philosopher  of  known  name  and  ac- 
quirements, as  the  convert  and  interpreter  of  certain 
developments  of  what  is  called  spiritualism,  produced  a 
temporary  sensation  in  our  own  day.  But  even  this  is 
strange  to  hear  of,  for  Jeremiah,  too,  was  a  well-known  person, 
not  a  nobody,  and  they  must  have  both  seen  and  heard 
him  on  many  occasions.  However  this  may  have  been, 
Baruch    was    sent    for,    and    when    he   had    read    his    book 


cnAi'.  H  JEREMIAH  269 

(which  probably  contained  but  a  chosen  few  of  the  pro- 
phecies of  Jeremiah)  to  this  grave  assembly,  their  conclusion 
was  that  the  king  must  be  informed.  "  Tell  us  now,  how 
didst  thou  write  all  these  words  ?  "  they  asked.  Then  Baruch 
answered  them  :  "  He  pronounced  all  these  words  unto  me 
with  his  mouth,  and  I  wrote  them  with  ink  in  this  book." 
The  grave  men,  concerned  and  troubled  as  by  a  serious 
matter  heard  for  the  first  time,  appear  to  us  like  a  picture 
surrounding  the  young  scribe  with  anxious  looks,  disturbed 
beyond  measure  by  what  they  had  heard,  not  knowing  how 
the  king  might  take  it.  Was  it  really  possible  that  they 
had  never  heard  the  prophet's  message  before  ?  There  was 
evidently  no  hostile  feeling  in  their  minds  to  the  authors  of 
these  utterances.  "  Go,  hide  thee,  thou  and  Jeremiah,"  they 
said,  "  and  let  no  man  know  where  ye  be."  Whatever 
happened,  they  were  anxious  at  least  to  save  the  bold  men 
who  had  thus  proclaimed  God's  approaching  judgments. 
This  troubled  conclave  gives  us  no  impression  of  an  obdurate 
and  impenitent  race  like  those  continually  visible  in  the 
passionate  addresses  of  the  prophets.  They  would  seem  to 
have  been  unmistakably  impres.sed  by  what  they  heard, 
almost  one  would  imagine  agreeing,  acknowledging  the  truth 
of  it  in  their  hearts,  anxious  that  the  king  should  hear  it  as 
a  matter  of  public  importance,  and  presenting  the  .still  more 
curious  aspect  of  never  having  heard  it  before. 

Its  effect,  however,  upon  the  king  was  very  different. 
When  the  counsellors  with  evident  seriousness  and  alarm  had 
reported  to  him  something  of  the  purport  of  this  new  book 
he  sent  one  of  his  attendants  to  bring  the  roll  :  and  here 
again  we  have  a  glimpse  of  the  interior  of  life  as  it  was  led 
in  Jerusalem  in  those  days.  The  king  was  in  "  his  winter- 
house,"  no  doubt  the  southern  rooms  fully  exposed  to  the 
.sunshine,  looking  over  the  fortifications  of  the  Temple 
enclosure  to  the  network  of  ascending  and  descending  paths, 
the  intricate  lines  of  height  and  hollow  that  stretch  out 
towards  Bethlehem.  In  the  middle  of  the  room  stood  the 
large  open  vessel  which  we  call  a  brazier,  filled  either  with 
smouldering  charcoal,  or  with  the  purer  fire  of  wood  embers 


270  THE  PROPHETS 


glowing  red.  The  king  sat  near  this  centre  of  warmth  while 
the  courtier  stood  up  and  read.  There  would  be  some  such 
stand  as  those  now  used  for  the  Koran  to  support  the  heavy 
roll.  But  Jchudi  had  not  read  above  "  three  or  four  leaves  " 
when   the   king  snatched   it  from  him,  and  drawing  a  knife 


ANCIENT   MANUSCRIPT   AT   SHECHEM 


from  his  girdle,  divided  the  parchment  with  a  stroke  and 
threw  the  pieces  upon  the  fire,  "  until  all  the  roll  was  con- 
sumed." Three  of  the  princes,  Elnathan  (who  would  seem 
to  have  been  the  king's  father-in-law)  and  Delaiah  and 
Gemariah,  attempted  by  their  entreaties  to  restrain  him,  but 
without  effect :   the  other  courtiers  would  seem  to  have  been 


CHAP.  II  JEREMIAH  271 

released  from  their  terrors  by  the  king's  audacity  and  in- 
difference, for  "they  were  not  afraid,  nor  rent  their  garments," 
when  this  sacrilegious  act  was  done,  and  the  last  warning 
thus  rejected  with  contumely.  An  order  to  arrest  Baruch 
and  Jeremiah  followed,  but  the  counsellors,  as  has  been  said, 
had  happily  foreseen  the  possibility  of  this,  and  recommended 
them  to  seek  some  secure  refuge.  "  The  Lord  hid  them  "  we 
are  told,  so  that  Jehoiakim's  rage  was  of  no  effect.  It  called 
forth  a  denunciation  of  a  dishonoured  death  to  himself  with- 
out burial,  the  most  dreadful  doom  that  could  be  threatened  ; 
but  except  that  in  none  of  the  records  of  his  death  is  there 
any  mention,  as  is  usual,  where  he  is  laid,  or  any  description 
of  his  funeral,  we  have  no  details  as  to  the  fulfilment  of  this 
prediction. 

Jeremiah  and  his  attendant,  however,  disappeared  from 
that  ever-darkening  scene.  Did  they  travel  forth,  two  sad 
pilgrims,  to  visit  those  of  the  first  captivity  in  Babylon  ? 
The  curious  story  of  the  girdle  which  Jeremiah  was  bidden 
to  hide  in  a  rock  by  Euphrates  looks  like  this.  But  at  all 
events  they  disappeared,  and  no  man  knew  or  could  tell 
where  they  had  gone.  In  their  seclusion,  wherever  it  was, 
the  work  which  Jehoiakim  had  destroyed  was  done  over 
again.  It  was  a  serious  matter  in  those  days  to  destroy  a 
book  of  which  only  one  copy  existed:  but  even  then  it  was  a 
futile  effort.  The  prophet  repeated  in  the  enforced  leisure 
of  his  banishment  all  that  he  had  before  dictated  to  his 
secretary,  "  and  there  were  added  besides  many  like  words." 
Then,  as  now,  it  was  the  most  vain  attempt  that  could  be 
made  to  crush  the  literature  by  which,  and  more  then  even, 
than  now,  a  nation  lives.  For  what  should  we  have  known 
of  Jerusalem  any  more  than  we  know  of  Edom,  or  Ammon, 
or  Moab,  but  for  Jeremiah  and  his  friend?  A  painfully 
deciphered  stone,  the  triumphant  record  of  one  man's  doings, 
calls  forth  the  wonder  and  curiosity  of  the  whole  world,  while 
the  living  record  of  how  men  looked  and  talked  and  acted  in 
all  the  recognisableness  of  their  humanity,  is  our  legacy  from 
the  Hebrews :  over  which  naturally,  it  being  so  infinitely 
more  important,  we  make  no  such  commotion,  receiving  it 


272  THE  PROPHETS 


calmly  :  or  suggesting  that  it  is,  perhaps,  all  an  invention, 
and  that  no  such  angry  king,  no  such  anxious  counsellors 
ever  were. 

The  chronology  of  the  after-part  of  Jeremiah's  life  is 
confused  and  bewildering,  and  the  reader  has  to  follow  from 
page  to  page  in  doubt  and  difficulty,  now  finding  himself  in 
the  time  of  Jehoiakim,  now  with  a  leap  in  the  midst  of  the 
last  reign  of  all,  that  of  the  troubled  and  kind,  but  not 
powerful,  Zedekiah — now  back  again  once  more  among  the 
princes  who  were  favourable,  under  the  young  king  who  was 
not  so.  The  historical  record  of  the  period  is  very  brief  and 
not  very  clear.  Whether  Jehoiakim  died  in  some  popular 
tumult  in  the  despair  of  the  people  at  the  approach  of  the 
Babylonian  hordes,  or  was  taken  prisoner  by  Nebuchadnezzar 
in  some  sally,  and  perished  so,  outside  the  walls  in  neglect 
and  despair,  it  is  impossible  to  tell.  Nothing  is  said  of  the 
actual  manner  of  his  death.  He  was  "  bound  in  fetters  to 
be  carried  to  Babylon  "  we  are  told  in  the  book  of  Chronicles. 
But  he  never  was  taken  there  and  disappears  from  history 
with  an  abruptness  that  implies  some  sudden  calamity.  And 
either  in  the  middle  of  the  siege  or  at  some  moment  of 
relief  when  Nebuchadnezzar  was  perhaps  occupied  with 
another  town,  without,  however,  giving  up  his  blockade  of 
Jerusalem,  Jehoiakim's  young  son  Jeconiah  or  Jehoiachin 
was  placed  on  the  unstable  throne,  in  his  early  youth — at 
eighteen,  as  is  said  in  one  record,  at  eight  in  the  other,  but  the 
former  would  seem  to  be  the  most  likely  age — and  reigned,  if 
reign  it  could  be  called,  with  a  powerful  enemy  without  the 
gates,  and  a  disheartened  and  starving  population  within,  for 
three  weary  and  troubled  months,  a  lifetime,  no  doubt,  of 
anxiety  and  trouble.  At  the  end  of  this  time  the  boy  or  his 
mother  or  his  counsellors  took  the  wise  step,  recommended  by 
the  prophet,  of  going  out  to  Nebuchadnezzar  and  giving  up 
the  futile  resistance  which  could  lead  to  nothing  but  further 
misery.  This  submission  would  seem  to  have  terminated  the 
siege  for  the  time  at  least.  And  young  Jehoiachin,  accom- 
panied by  the  best  of  his  kingdom,  ten  thousand  captives, 
princes   and   mighty  men  of  valour,  and   the  most  skilful   of 


CHAP.  II  JEREMIAH  273 

the  craftsmen — the  smiths  being  especially  mentioned,  so  as 
to  cripple  in  the  most  effectual  way  any  further  resistance  on 
the  part  of  the  remnant  left  in  the  city — was  carried  away 
to  Babylon  :  where  long  after  the  boy-king,  who  had  done 
what  little  was  possible  to  shorten  the  agony  of  his  people, 
had  a  peaceful  end  in  honour  and  comparative  wellbeing. 

The  city  was  left  in  miserable  plight  when  all  its  best 
and  strongest  men  were  thus  drafted  away  : — the  famished 
crowds  that  remained  were  perhaps  too  eager  for  the  chance 
of  food  and  some  relief  from  their  sufferings,  to  feel  as  they 
otherwise  would  have  done  the  desolation  of  so  many  homes, 
in  which  some  hapless  old  man  or  distracted  mother  only 
was  left  where  the  pride  of  the  race  had  been  :  or  that  the 
sound  of  the  anvil  was  silenced,  and  all  the  implements  of 
skill  thrown  aside.  Thus  Jerusalem  was  left,  deprived  of  all 
that  was  important  or  serviceable  in  her  population.  No  doubt 
Nebuchadnezzar  had  an  eye  to  the  advantage  of  his  own 
dominions  in  carrying  off  the  ablest  of  the  craftsmen,  as  well 
as  to  the  diminishing  of  Hebrew  capacity  and  power.  Before 
he  withdrew  his  vast  army  from  the  surrounding  country  the 
conqueror  set  up  a  vassal  king  over  the  remnant  that  was  left, 
one  of  the  remaining  sons  of  the  great  Josiah,  Zedekiah,  the 
last  actual  king  of  Jerusalem.  He  was  young  also,  not  much 
older  than  his  dethroned  nephew,  twenty-one  only — though, 
of  course,  that  age  means  greater  maturity  in  an  Eastern 
climate  than  in  ours.  The  historians  of  Kings  and  Chronicles, 
in  whose  brief  records  there  would  seem  a  hurry  as  of  heart- 
sickness  and  unwillingness  to  recall  the  circumstances  of  that 
darkest  spot  in  their  national  history,  give  but  a  rapid  summary 
of  his  reign,  describing  him  as  having  done  what  was  evil  in 
the  sight  of  the  Lord  according  to  all  that  Jehoiakim  had 
done.  But  the  story  which  is  mingled  with  Jeremiah's 
prophecies  gives  a  fuller  contemporary  portrait,  and  one  in 
which  the  part  of  Zedekiah  has  a  subdued  and  saddened 
interest.  He  was  young,  i)robably  in  the  distraction  of  the 
times  with  little  training  and  adaptation  for  his  difficult  task, 
a  younger  son  taken  from  among  the  crowd  to  be  advanced 
to  this  painful  eminence  :  and  his  princes  who  remained  must 

T 


274  THE  PROPHETS 


have  been  either,  Hke  himself,  unconsidered  scions  of  the 
great  houses  of  Jerusalem,  or  mere  officials  not  important 
enough  in  the  eyes  of  Nebuchadnezzar  to  be  carried  away. 
Of  all  the  names  of  the  high  officers  of  the  court  who  stood 
round  Jehoiakim,  with  troubled  faces,  when  Jeremiah's  roll 
was  brought  before  him,  there  is  none  left  but  Gemariah : 
though  the  sons  of  two  or  three  of  these  men  are  mentioned 
as  might  be  expected.  The  high  priest,  the  scribes,  almost 
all  the  officials,  are  changed.  The  Pashur  who  comes  to 
Jeremiah  from  the  king  is  another  Pashur  from  him  who  set 
the  prophet  in  the  stocks.  And  it  may  easily  be  imagined, 
if  the  serious  men,  bred  under  King  Josiah  and  with  all  the 
great  traditions  of  his  reign,  were  unable  to  hold  head  against 
the  invader,  how  much  less  able  these  inexperienced  rulers 
must  have  been.  Jeremiah's  unflattering  parable  of  the  two 
baskets  of  figs — the  one  very  good,  the  other  "  very  naughty, 
which  could  not  be  eaten,  they  were  so  bad,"  as  symbols  of 
the  portion  of  Judah  which  had  been  carried  away  and  that 
which  remained  —  sets  forth  in  the  most  uncompromising 
manner  the  change  that  had  taken  place,  and  was  not  likely, 
it  need  not  be  said,  to  endear  him  to  the  new  men  who  had 
the  power  in  their  hands. 

Notwithstanding,  the  young  king,  when  he  found  that 
the  prophet  had  come  back  to  the  city  in  the  confusion 
of  that  evil  time,  showed  no  trace  of  having  inherited  his 
brother's  rage  against  him.  On  the  contrary,  he  at  once 
acknowledged  his  mission  and  importance.  Though  he 
might  have  as  little  inclination  as  his  predecessor  to  listen  to 
Jeremiah's  message,  he  had  a  reverence,  perhaps  born  of  fear, 
for  himself.  And  the  new  rulers  of  Jerusalem,  humbled  as 
they  were,  had  not  abandoned  the  hope  of  doing  something 
yet  to  help  themselves.  Pharaoh's  army  had  again  appeared 
out  of  Egypt,  and  its  appearance  in  the  distance  had  been 
the  cause  of  the  departure  of  the  Babylonians.  This  was 
enough  to  give  a  spring  of  renewed  hope  to  the  city  even  in 
the  midst  of  its  abasement.  And  Zedekiah  sent  a  deputation 
from  his  palace  to  the  prophet  to  ask  his  prayers  and  his 
advice.      "  Pray  now  unto  the  Lord   our  God   for  us."      Was 


CHAP.  II  JEREMIAH  275 

it  superstition  rather  than  devotion  that  inspired  this  embassy, 
as  Balak  had  sent  to  Balaam  to  curse  the  Israelites  ?  Did 
those  unfortunate  rulers  of  the  doomed  and  impoverished 
place  hope  that  if  Jeremiah  could  but  be  got  to  change  his 
mind  all  would  go  well  ?  Was  it  rather  as  a  fetish  than  as 
an  exponent  of  God's  will  that  they  sought  him  ?  If  so  they 
were  most  quickly  undeceived.  The  prophet  after  his  wan- 
derings, after  the  horrors  of  the  siege  and  the  captivity,  the 
fulfilment  of  so  many  of  his  predictions,  was  not  likely  to  be 
persuaded  into  other  views  by  any  embassy.  His  message  even 
was  scarcely  tempered  by  the  offer  of  a  place  of  repentance. 
"  Deceive  not  yourselves,"  he  says,  "  saying.  The  Chaldeans 
shall  surely  depart  from  us :  for  they  shall  not  depart."  It 
must  have  been  with  anger  and  disappointment  that  the 
baffled  envoys  \vithdrevv^ 

And  certainly  Jeremiah's  behaviour  was  not  conciliatory. 
He  would  seem  to  have  gone  about,  with  the  girdle  round 
him  which  had  been  "  marred  "  in  the  rocks  by  the  Euphrates, 
and  with  that  yoke  on  his  neck  which  he  had  made  as  a 
symbol  of  the  yoke  of  Babylon,  and  which  was  the  occasion 
of  a  curious  scene  in  the  Temple  when  a  certain  Hananiah  of 
Gibeon,  one  of  the  sons  or  school  of  the  prophets,  seized  and 
broke  the  yoke  with  a  false  prediction  that  the  yoke  of 
Nebuchadnezzar  would  thus  be  broken  in  two  years.  The 
parable  of  the  two  baskets  of  figs  has  been  already  referred  to. 
And  when  the  messengers  of  Zedekiah  were  sent  to  Babylon 
with  the  tribute  money  Jeremiah  charged  them  (one  being 
his  friend  Gemariah)  with  a  letter  to  the  captives  in  which 
he  exhorted  them  to  entertain  no  hopes  of  speedy  deliverance, 
but  on  the  contrary  to  settle  themselves  in  their  captivity, 
making  the  best  of  it,  conforming  as  far  as  they  could  to 
the  customs  of  their  captors.  "  Seek  the  peace  of  the  city 
whither  I  have  caused  you  to  be  carried  away  captive,  and 
pray  unto  the  Lord  for  it :  for  in  the  peace  thereof  shall 
ye  have  peace."  He  adds,  "  for  after  seventy  years  be 
accomplished  at  Babylon  I  will  visit  you,  and  perform  my 
good  word  toward  you,  in  causing  you  to  return  to  this  place." 
Seventy  years !  too  long  a  period  to  give  hope  to  any  living 


276  THE  PROPHETS 


man  to  see  that  return.  How  much  more  pleasant  must  it 
have  been  to  believe  the  voice  of  the  flattering  prophet  who 
promised  deliverance  in  two  !  It  would  not  be  in  nature  to 
expect  that  the  heart  of  the  people,  always  longing  to  believe 
what  it  wished,  should  not  have  preferred  Hananiah  to 
Jeremiah.  And  how  the  hearts  of  those  who  sat  down  by 
the  waters  of  Babylon  and  wept  as  they  remembered  Zion 
must  have  sunk  within  them  when  the  letter  was  read  !  and 
yet  it  was  the  best  advice  that  could  be  given  to  them,  and 
was  evidently  taken  by  many,  since  such  glimpses  as  we  have 
of  the  captive  Jews  in  Babylon  describe  a  number  among 
them  as  rich  and  prosperous  men. 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  however,  that  the  authorities 
in  Jerusalem  should  look  out  eagerly  for  any  opportunity  of 
sequestrating  from  the  sight  and  hearing  of  their  disturbed 
and  despondent  people  such  an  image  and  messenger  of 
trouble  as  this  uncompromising  prophet.  Every  appearance 
of  him  in  the  streets  or  at  the  gates  of  the  Temple  with  his 
mildewed  girdle  and  his  yoke,  must  have  been  as  a  picture 
to  the  populace  of  mournful  meaning,  though  he  might  never 
open  his  mouth  ;  and  at  length  the  opportunity  came.  The 
next  scene  occurs  at  the  moment  when  Nebuchadnezzar, 
having  found  his  puppet  Zedekiah  as  rebellious  and  ready  to 
conspire  as  his  brother  and  nephew  had  been,  had  returned 
with  his  army  to  crush  the  ever- insubordinate  city,  but, 
momentarily  alarmed  by  the  rumour  of  Pharaoh's  army 
approaching,  had  made  a  feint  of  raising  the  siege.  As  soon 
as  the  ways  were  liberated  and  the  gates  open  Jeremiah  went 
out  "  to  go  into  the  land  of  Benjamin  "  "  in  the  midst  of  the 
people,"  no  doubt  among  the  crowd  which  would  pour  forth 
in  search  of  food  and  refreshment  after  long  famishing  in  the 
blockaded  city.  But  the  captain  of  the  ward  saw  among 
the  crowd  the  figure  of  the  prophet,  going  in  all  probability 
to  his  father's  fields  at  Anathoth  to  bring  in  provisions  for 
himself  and  his  kindred.  "  Thou  fallest  away  to  the 
Chaldeans,"  he  cried,  seizing  upon  Jeremiah  as  he  passed  :  and, 
no  doubt,  the  crowd  would  think  the  accusation  a  very  likely 
one   considering  how  the   prophet  proclaimed   the   might  of 


CHAP.  II  JEREMIAH  277 

the  Chaldeans  and  discouraged  all  resistance  to  them  on 
every  occasion.  Jeremiah  denied  the  accusation,  but  in  vain  : 
and  he  was  hustled  away  through  the  throng  to  the  Temple 
enclosure,  and  thence  to  the  house  of  Jonathan  the  scribe, 
underneath  which  lay  the  dungeons  hewn  in  the  rock,  and  in 
such  evil  condition  as  the  ancients  thought  fit  and  meet  for 
serious  offenders.  Here,  we  are  told,  he  remained  "  many 
days,"  which  means  in  Hebrew  idiom  a  long  time,  long 
enough  we  may  suppose  to  admit  of  the  return  of  the 
Chaldeans  and  to  quench  the  noisy  triumph  of  the  Egyptian 
party  in  the  city.  Against  this  dominant  faction  Zedekiah, 
it  is  evident,  could  not  maintain  his  own  authority  :  but  in 
the  subsequent  depression  he  took  heart  to  have  the  prisoner 
brought  out  and  conveyed  secretly  to  his  palace. 

There  is  much  that  is  touching  and  attractive  in  the 
character  of  Zedekiah  as  here  exhibited.  He  was  not  a  man 
of  resolution  or  courage.  He  was  not  strong  enough  even 
to  be  sure  of  his  own  opinions  or  faith,  but  wavered  accord- 
ing to  the  changes  of  the  moment  :  yet  he  had  a  feeble  good 
meaning  at  the  bottom  of  all  and  a  trust  in  the  prophet  of 
his  father's  time,  the  man  whom  no  flatteries  or  persuasions 
could  corrupt.  He  came  "  secretly  "  to  the  rescued  prisoner 
with  all  the  soils  of  the  dungeon  upon  him  and  asked,  with 
what  trembling  we  may  conceive,  "  Is  there  any  word  from 
the  Lord  ?  "  Unhappy  king  with  no  real  confidence  in  his 
heart,  forced  forward  and  held  up  by  those  about  him  in  the 
futile  and  hopeless  struggle  !  In  that  secret  chamber,  with 
no  one  near  to  excite  panic  or  indignation,  and  with  this 
childlike,  timid  appeal  in  his  ears,  might  not  Jeremiah,  might 
not  his  God,  find  a  word  of  comfort  for  the  son  of  David  ? 
Alas,  no  !  "  Is  there  any  word  from  the  Lord  ?  "  "  There  is," 
replied  the  prophet :  "  for,  said  he,  thou  shalt  be  delivered 
into  the  hand  of  the  king  of  Babylon."  There  is  something 
that  seems  inexorable,  terrible,  in  this  doom,  a  doom  which 
no  individual  supplication  could  now  avert,  not  the  feeble 
attempt  at  welldoing  of  a  powerless  king. 

For  there  had  just  passed  an  event  of  great  importance 
in   the  history  of  the  race,  a  further  demonstration   by  the 


278  THE  PROPHETS 


disobedient  rulers  of  how  little  any  amendment  meant 
which  misfortune  or  terror  might  force  them  to.  At  an 
earlier  period,  whether  the  beginning  of  Zedekiah's  reign 
or  at  some  other  of  the  lowest  points  of  national  despond- 
ency, when  their  hopes  had  sunk  so  deeply  that  a  hurried 
attempt  to  propitiate  God  commended  itself  even  to  the 
most  rebellious,  it  had  occurred  either  to  the  king  or  to 
some  one  among  the  rulers  to  suggest  the  carrying  out  of 
a  command  in  the  law  which  had  long  fallen  into  disuse. 
This  was  the  liberation  after  seven  years'  service  of  every 
Hebrew  bondsman.  It  was  not  forbidden  to  have  slaves  : 
it  was  even  permitted  to  buy  a  slave  either  from  himself  in 
repayment  of  a  debt,  or  by  purchase  from  another  who  had 
been  his  creditor,  but  with  this  powerful  restraint  and  limita- 
tion that  at  the  end  of  the  seventh  year  all  the  conditions  of 
bondage  were  annulled  and  the  slave  went  free.  He  was 
also  by  a  similar  law  reinstated  in  his  original  patrimony 
when  the  sabbatical  year  came  round,  so  that  neither  slavery 
nor  confiscation  of  a  permanent  nature  could  exist  in  Israel. 
This  law,  however,  had  fallen  into  absolute  disuse,  and 
Hebrews  had  been  retained  in  slavery  as  if  they  had  been 
strangers.  It  was  a  well-chosen  act  with  which  to  show  a 
desire  to  return  to  the  better  ways  of  their  fathers,  and 
render  real  obedience,  not  a  mere  ceremonial  service,  to 
God.  But  when  the  immediate  terror  of  the  moment  was 
over,  this  just  act  began  to  represent  itself,  in  what  they 
would,  no  doubt,  call  its  true  colours  to  the  masters  and 
owners  of  these  liberated  slaves.  What !  give  up  so  much 
wealth,  so  much  additional  importance  as  their  property 
in  these  workmen  and  servants  gave  them,  sacrifice  their 
superiority,  their  money  ;  and  for  what  ?  For  a  doubtful 
approval  from  the  God  whom  they  feared  by  times  yet  had 
no  true  allegiance  to  :  when  here  were  the  Egyptian  banners 
defiling  out  of  the  desert,  and  the  Babylonian  encampments 
breaking  up  without  any  help  from  Jehovah,  and  ease  and 
safety  coming  back  !  "  But  afterward  they  turned  and  cau.sed 
the  servants  and  the  handmaids  whom  they  had  let  go  free 
to  return,  and  brought  them  into  subjection."      These  slaves. 


CHAP.  J I  JEREMIAH  ri<i 

the  men  of  them,  had  doubtless  gone  to  the  walls  to  help  in 
the  defence  of  the  city  in  the  joy  of  their  deliverance  :  but 
what  did  it  matter  now  about  the  defence  of  the  city,  when 
Egypt  triumphant  was  on  her  way  to  deliver  Jerusalem  ? 
There  was  still  a  king  of  Judah  captive  in  Egypt,  Jehoahaz, 
and  no  doubt  a  train  of  attendants  with  him  ;  but  who  would 
think  of  that  in  the  delirium  of  extravagant  hope  in  any 
prospect  of  safety,  which  is  so  often  seen  in  a  country  on 
the  brink  of  destruction  ? 

No  sterner  denunciation  ever  came  from  Jeremiah's  lips 
than  that  which  followed  the  miserable  failure  of  this  only 
real  effort  after  amendment  made  in  the  doomed  city.  It 
was  probably  uttered  in  the  dungeon  where  he  lay,  scarcely 
capable  of  hearing,  deep  underground  as  he  was,  even 
those  "  snortings  from  Dan,"  when  they  came,  that  sound 
of  a  great  multitude  which  would  intimate  to  the  whole  city 
that  the  besiegers  were  gathering  again  to  their  camp  outside 
the  walls.  "  I  proclaim  a  liberty  for  you,  saith  the  Lord,  to 
the  sword,  to  the  pestilence,  and  to  famine  ;  and  I  will  make 
you  to  be  removed  into  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world."  It 
had  no  doubt  been  after  the  manumission  of  the  slaves  that 
Jeremiah  promised  to  King  Zedekiah  though  not  deliverance 
yet  a  peaceful  end.  But  now  he  withdrew  that  favourable 
sentence:  "  Zedekiah  and  his  princes  I  will  give  into  the  hands 
of  their  enemies,  and  into  the  hands  of  them  that  seek  their 
life,  and  into  the  hands  of  the  King  of  Babylon's  army,  which 
are  gone  from  you.  l^chold,  I  will  command,  saith  the  Lord, 
and  cause  them  to  return  to  this  city  ;  and  they  shall  fight 
against  it,  and  take  it,  and  burn  it  with  fire  :  and  I  will 
make  the  cities  of  Judah  a  desolation  without  an  inhabitant." 
It  was  in  the  midst  of  the  jubilee  and  rejoicing  caused  by 
the  raising  of  the  siege  and  the  rumoured  approach  of  the 
Egyptian  army  that  this  last  word  of  doom  was  said. 

But  that  transport  of  fancied  deliverance  was  soon  over. 
The  Chaldeans  came  back  and  the  state  of  the  city  was 
worse  than  ever  when  Zedekiah  took  the  prophet  out  of  his, 
subterranean  prison.  Whether  from  mere  superstitious  terror 
of  offending  still   further  the  incensed   God  whom  Jeremiah 


28o 


THE  PROPHETS 


served,  or  from  a  lingering  hope  that  some  good  might  still 
result  from  the  prophet's  intercession,  the  king  gave  ear 
to  his  anxious  prayer  not  to  be  sent  back  to  his  dungeon. 
"  Cause  me  not  to  return  to  the  house  of  Jonathan,  the 
scribe,  lest  I  die  there,"  and  imprisoned  him  instead  "  in 
the  court  of  the  prison,"  presumably  a  bearable  confinement 
which  kept  him  out  of  the  way  of  danger.  Zedekiah  gave 
orders   at  the  same   time   that  a  piece  of  bread  should    be 


5 

1- 

ll 

Laii 

\ 

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f^^ 

i 

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1 

C^T^^^^^ffifH 

M 

IP 

^^  ■ 

BANIAS  :     NEAR    THE   ANCIENT   DAN 


given  him  daily  out  of  the  bakers'  street  "  until  all  the 
bread  in  the  city'  was  spent,"  a  significant  proviso.  And 
there  Jeremiah  remained  for  some  time  in  comparative  calm 
while  the  agony  of  the  doomed  city  went  on,  and  the  enemy 
pushed  every  day  nearer,  and  the  misery  and  starvation 
increased.  He  never  seems  to  have  intermitted  during  all 
this  time  his  dreadful  denunciations.  It  was,  no  doubt,  the 
kindest  and  best  thing  that  could  be  done  to  convince  the 
people  of  the  futility  of  the  struggle  and  to  exhort  them  by 
all  means  in  his  power  to  conciliate  and  submit  to,  instead 
of  vainly  endeavouring  to  hold  at  bay,  the  powerful  monarch 
at    their   gates  ;    but    at    the   same    time    it  was,  no   doubt. 


CHAP.  II  JEREMIAH  281 

terrible  that  such  a  voice  should  rise  without  intermission 
in  the  midst  of  that  famished  and  despairing  people  :  and 
it  is  impossible  not  to  feel  a  certain  sympathy  for  the 
harassed  rulers  at  their  wits'  end,  when  they  came  once 
more  to  Zedekiah  to  beg  that  the  prophet  who  was  almost 
as  great  a  terror  as  Nebuchadnezzar  himself  might  be  either 
put  to  death  or  so  imprisoned  as  to  be  made  harmless  at 
this  crisis  of  fate.  "  He  weakeneth  the  men  of  war  that 
remain  in  the  city,  and  the  hands  of  all  the  people,  in 
speaking  such  words  unto  them."  In  this  respect,  no 
doubt,  they  had  right  on  their  side.  liehold,  he  is  in 
your  hands,"  said  the  despairing  Zedekiah  :  "  for  the  king 
is  not  he  that  can  do  anything  against  you."  The  result 
was  that  Jeremiah  was  thrown  into  a  still  worse  and  more 
terrible  dungeon  than  before,  into  which  he  was  let  down 
by  cords.  "  And  in  the  dungeon  there  was  no  water  (pre- 
sumably a  better  state  of  affairs),  but  mire  :  so  Jeremiah 
sank  in  the  mire."  If  his  prophecies  were  fatal  to  the 
people,  they  brought,  at  least,  nothing  of  advantage  to 
himself  He  was  cast  into  this  dreadful  hole  to  starve 
and  die  neglected  while  the  tumult  raged  over  his  head. 
Was  it  he  who  spoke  in  the  Psalm  of  being  brought  out 
of  the  horrible  pit,  and  from  the  miry  clay?  Such  was, 
at  least,  the  miserable  place  in  which  he  now  lay. 

From  this  terrible  plight  the  prophet  was  saved  by  a 
stranger,  an  Ethiopian  eunuch,  most  likely  one  of  those 
gigantic  blacks  who  still  guard  the  harems  of  Eastern 
princes,  a  man  of  considerable  authority  and  power  in  the 
household  though  his  position  was  so  little  elevated.  He 
was  more  pitiful,  if  not  more  pious,  than  the  Hebrew  princes  ; 
it  is  possible  that  as  a  proselyte  he  might  be  the  latter  too. 
He  went  to  the  king  "  then  sitting  in  the  gate  of  Benjamin," 
the  gate  that  looked  out  towards  the  north,  that  of  St.  Stephen 
or  of  Damascus,  perhaps,  in  modern  nomenclature,  sadly 
sitting  looking  out  upon  the  great  army  that  lay  stretched 
as  far  as  eye  could  see,  superintending,  perhaps,  the  erection 
of  some  new  machine  for  stones  or  other  missiles  on  the 
walls.    "  My  lord,"  said  the  eunuch,  "  these  men  have  done  evil 


282 


THE  PROPHETS 


in  all  that  they  have  done  to  Jeremiah  the  prophet,  whom  they 
have  cast  into  the  dungeon  ;  and  he  is  like  to  die  of  hunger 
in  the  place  where  he  is  :  for  there  is  no  more  bread  in  the 
city."  Strengthened  by  the  king's  permission,  Ebed-melech 
hurried  away  and  with  thirty  men  to  aid  him  succeeded  in 
drawing  up  Jeremiah  with  the  aid  of  strong  ropes  and  "  old  cast 
clouts  "  (but  this  phraseology  is  far  too  Saxon  for  the  Eastern 
rags  and  fragments,  indescribable  scraps  of  apparel) — put  under 
his  armholes  to  keep  the  cords  from  cutting  into  his  emaci- 
ated frame — from  the  horrible  pit  and  out  of  the  miry  clay. 


Jl'.RUSALEM  :     NORTH-EASTERN    CORNER.        NEBY   SAMWIL    IN    THE   DISTANCE 


Then  once  more  Zcdckiah  took  the  prophet  aside  into 
some  chamber  in  one  of  the  doorways  of  the  Temple,  "  the 
third  entry  that  is  in  the  house  of  God."  "  I  will  ask  thee  a 
thing,"  said  the  anxious  king  ;  "  hide  nothing  from  me," — 
piteous  question  which  it  was  unnecessary  to  explain  or  to 
put  into  further  words  !  "  If  I  declare  it  unto  thee,  wilt  thou 
not  surely  put  me  to  death  ?  "  answered  Jeremiah  :  but  when 
the  king  swore  "  As  the  Lord  liveth,  that  made  us  this  soul," 
most  remarkable  adjuration,  the  prophet  once  more  opened 
his  lips.  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  the  God  of  hosts,  the  God 
of  Israel,  If  thou  wilt  assuredly  go  forth  unto  the  king  of 
Babylon's  princes,  then  thy  soul  shall  live,  and  this  city  shall 
not  be  burnt  with  fire  ;  and  thou  shalt  live,  and  thine  house : 


cnAi'.  II  JEREMIAH  283 

but  if  thou  wilt  not  go  forth  to  the  king  of  Babylon's  princes, 
then  shall  this  city  be  given  into  the  hand  of  the  Chaldeans, 
and  they  shall  burn  it  with  fire,  and  thou  shalt  not  escape  out 
of  their  hand."  That  this  was  now  wise  and  patriotic  advice 
there  is  no  doubt ;  for  resistance  was  hopeless,  and  only  the 
rage  of  despair  carried  it  on.  And  Zedekiah  was,  in  fact,  a 
revolted  tributary  who  had  accepted  the  kingdom  under  con- 
ditions which  he  had  broken,  and  whose  part  it  evidently 
was  to  make  submission,  since  no  higher  role  of  heroism  was 
within  his  power.  The  king  heard  without  anger,  making  a 
feeble  defence  that  the  Jews  who  were  among  the  Chaldeans 
would  turn  against  him,  but  listening  in  silence  to  Jeremiah's 
further  argument,  feeling,  we  cannot  doubt,  its  justice,  though 
afraid,  shut  in  as  he  was  among  a  fierce  oligarchy  of  desper- 
ate men,  to  take  any  step  in  obedience  to  it.  All  that  he 
said  was  to  beg  Jeremiah  not  to  betray  to  the  princes  what 
he  had  said,  before  he  sorrowfully  left  the  prophet,  once 
more  in  the  daylight  and  fresh  air,  in  that  court  of  the  prison 
where  life  was  at  least  endurable  and  where  he  remained 
until  his  dread  prophecies  were  accomplished.  "He  was 
there  when  Jerusalem  was  taken,"  looking  on  with  a  break- 
ing heart  while  the  last  horrors  were  inflicted,  the 
streets  filled  with  the  slain,  the  holy  and  beautiful 
house  he  loved  battered  down,  and  fire  raging  among  its 
courts.  No  man  harmed  Jeremiah  in  that  hour  of  fate  :  the 
l^abylonian  general  would  have  given  him  honour  and  pro- 
motion if  he  would  have  accepted  them,  knowing,  no  doubt, 
by  report  that  the  prophet  had  always  been  on  his  side. 
It  would  appear  that  when  all  was  over,  he  was  bound  with 
the  rest  in  chains  and  went  along  with  the  mournful  pro- 
cession of  captives  as  far  as  Ramah  :  where  some  one  probably 
told  the  general  who  he  was,  and  he  was  immediately 
released.  "  If  it  seem  good  to  thee  to  come  with  me  into 
Babylon,  come,  and  I  will  look  well  unto  thee  ;  but  if  it 
seem  ill  unto  thee  to  come  with  me  into  Babylon,  forbear  : 
behold  all  the  land  is  before  thee  :  whither  it  sccmeth  good 
and  convenient  for  thee  to  go,  thither  go." 

Jeremiah  chose  the  latter  alternative  ;  he  went  back  with 


THE  PROPHETS 


Gcdaliah,  the  son  of  Ahikam,  the  son  of  Shaphan,  of  a 
family  that  had  always  been  favourable  to  the  prophet,  and 
who  was  now  appointed  governor  over  the  poor  refugees  of 
Jerusalem,  who  were  left  like  the  few  berries  on  an  olive-tree 
that  has  been  well  beaten,  like  the  few  leaves  on  the  ends  of  the 
boughs  swept  by  autumn  breezes,  like  the  two  ears  and  part  of  a 
leg  taken  by  the  shepherd  out  of  the  lion's  mouth  according 
to  the  forcible  metaphor  of  Amos.  The  land  was  before 
him  !  What  irony  was  in  the  words  !  the  land  with  all  its 
vacant  houses  shattered,  open  to  the  rain  and  scorching  sun  ; 
and  Jerusalem  a  heap  of  smoking  smouldering  ruins.  The 
captives  marching  along  the  weary  ways  in  their  chains,  two 
and  two,  beating  out  footsore  and  heartsick  the  long,  long 
route  to  l^abylon,  were  scarcely  so  sad  as  the  few  who 
remained  and  went  back  to  find  their  beautiful  city,  the  joy 
of  the  whole  earth,  as  they  had  proudly  called  her  in  their 
songs,  lying  bare  upon  her  hillside,  her  dead  unburied,  the 
wretched  relics  of  her  populace  coming  out  by  night  like 
owls  and  bats,  gathering  what  garbage  they  could  find  to  eat, 
afraid  of  their  own  shadows.  Not  any  dread  satisfaction  in 
the  prophecy  fulfilled,  not  any  sense  of  relief  in  the  catastrophe 
accomplished,  would  reconcile  the  hearts  of  these  miserable 
Hebrews  to  the  dreadful  sight  before  their  eyes. 

The  unfortunate  Zedekiah,  forced  along  by  the  impulse 
of  stronger  wills  than  his  own,  had  been  persuaded  to  flee  at 
the  last  moment — or  had  been  carried  off  by  the  superior 
force  of  his  counsellors — by  night  in  the  opposite  direction, 
passing  the  very  spot  where  Jeremiah  had  watched  the  potter 
making  one  vessel  to  honour  and  another  to  dishonour — away 
wildly  towards  the  plains  of  Jericho:  but  was  pursued  and 
caught  and  brought  ignominiously  to  Nebuchadnezzar  at 
Riblah  far  off  on  the  way  to  Babylon.  The  conquerors, 
enraged,  no  doubt,  by  the  vain  and  futile  resistance  which 
had  only  prolonged  the  siege  and  increased  its  horrors, 
killed  the  sons  of  the  unfortunate  king — who,  from  his  age, 
must  have  been  little  more  than  children,  and  who,  no  doubt, 
were  among  the  captives  who  had  been  brought  from  Jeru- 
salem-— before  his  eyes,  ere  these  unhappy  eyes  were  cruelly 


CHAP.  II  JEREMIAH  28s 

put  out  and  saw  no  more.  He  was  then  loaded  with  chains 
and  carried  off  to  Babylon,  not  permitted  even  the  evasion 
of  death ;  such  was  the  fate  of  a  rebel  and  conspirator 
against  his  suzerain  in  those  days  of  blood  and  fire. 

There  is  a  cave,  opposite  to  what  is  now  called  the  Damas- 
cus gate  of  Jerusalem,  deep  and  black  on  the  side  of  the  little 
hill,  where  once  Jewish  criminals  were  executed,  and  which 
is  supposed  by  some  to  be  the  real  site  of  the  greatest 
tragedy  that  earth  ever  saw — which  tradition  calls  the 
Grotto  of  Jeremiah,  and  in  which  it  is  believed  the  prophet 
took  shelter,  and  wrote  the  great  and  heartrending  poem 
which  we  call  the  Book  of  Lamentations.  Nowhere  could 
the  desolation  of  the  deserted  city  be  more  clearly  seen. 
It  was  there  that  the  assault  had  been  made,  and  the 
shattered  walls  and  ruined  fortifications  would  afford  clear 
views  of  the  horror  within,  the  vultures  descending  in  dreadful 
clouds,  the  jackals  stealing  forth  by  night  to  seek  an  awful 
prey.  The  smoke  of  the  burning  would  hang  over  the 
whole  :  and  over  Moriah  the  aching  void  where  once 
Solomon's  beautiful  Temple  had  been,  would  wound  the 
eyes  that  gazed  and  gazed  and  found  no  familiar  outline 
in  the  charred  ruins  heaped  upon  the  hill.  And  sound 
there  would  be  none  in  the  abandoned  place,  the  openings 
of  the  streets  all  hushed,  their  steep  lines  of  descent  between 
buildings  roofless,  windowless,  full  of  emptiness,  pathetically 
visible  without  a  passenger.  And  there  the  prophet 
of  woe  might  well  have  looked  forth  under  the  black  shelf 
of  the  rocks,  and  framed  his  mourgful  song — one  of  those 
wonderful  Hebrew  poems  which  forestalled  in  the  early 
centuries  all  that  later  poets  could  say. 

How  doth  the  city  sit  soHtary, 

That  was  full  of  people  ! 

How  is  she  become  a  widow  ! 

She  that  was  great  among  the  nations. 

And  princess  among  the  provinces, 

How  is  she  become  tributary  ! 

She  weepeth  sore  in  the  night, 

The  tears  are  on  her  cheeks  : 

Among  all  her  lovers  she  hath  none  to  comfort  her  : 


286  THE  PROPHETS 


Her  friends  have  dealt  treacherously  with  her, 
They  are  become  her  enemies. 

The  ways  of  Zion  do  mourn, 

Because  none  come  to  her  solemn  feasts  : 

All  her  gates  are  desolate  : 

Her  priests  sigh. 

Her  virgins  are  afflicted. 

And  she  is  in  bitterness. 

The  reader  will  remember  how  Dante,  in  the  sudden 
hush  and  stupefaction  of  the  blow  which  seemed  to  darken 
heaven  and  earth  to  him,  could  find  no  words  so  meet  to 
express  his  sense  of  that  cessation  of  life  and  hope  as  those 
of  his  ancient  fellow-craftsman,  the  poet  of  desolation — exiled, 
imprisoned,  outlawed,  like  him,  yet  turning  ever  like  him 
with  a  heartbroken  tenderness  to  the  home  of  his  love. 
"  How  doth  the  city  sit  solitary  that 'was  full  of  people!" 
Jeremiah's  prophecies  had  not  possessed,  like  those  of  his 
predecessor  Isaiah,  the  unfailing  charm  of  a  poetic  genius 
which  never  flagged,  and  had  all  the  resources  of  unconscious 
but  supreme  art  at  its  disposition.  The  terrible  monotone 
of  denunciation,  just  broken  here  and  there  by  the  melody 
which  he  caught  up  from  those  who  had  gone  before  him, 
the  momentary  vision  which  revealed  the  Sun  of  Righteous- 
ness even  to  his  weeping  eyes,  is  too  continuous  in  its  rage 
of  sorrow  for  the  general  ear.  We  are  tempted  almost  to 
turn  to  the  lighter  side  by  times,  to  approve  any  tumult  or 
noise  of  discord  which  the  doomed  Hebrews  could  make  to 
escape  from  such  an  unbroken  cry  of  doom.  But  when  all 
is  accomplished  and  the  poet's  heart  breaks  out  in  that  wail 
of  mourning,  we  recognise  once  more  the  great  and  crowning 
glory  of  the  race,  the  fount  of  poetry  which  flowed  so  full 
and  bright,  first  of  all  the  celestial  streams  which  have 
watered  the  earth,  first  and  most  lasting,  "  above  all  Greek, 
above  all  Roman  fame."  It  takes  its  place  among  those 
great  poems  which  express  in  their  different  ways  the 
inmost  passions  and  thoughts  of  humanity,  the  song  of 
love,  the  song  of  the  vanity  of  human  things,  the  song 
of  Job,  the  mysteries  of  God's  dealings  with  man.  The 
song  of  sorrow  fills  up  the  wonderful  tale. 


CHAP.  II  JEREMIAH  287 

Is  it  nothing  to  you,  all  ye  that  pass  by  ? 

Behold,  and  see  if  there  is  any  sorrow  like  unto  my  sorrow. 

Mine  eye,  mine  eye  runneth  down  with  water, 
Because  the  comforter  is  far  from  me. 

The  elders  of  the  daughter  of  Zion  sit  upon  the  ground, 

And  keep  silence  : 

They  have  cast  dust  upon  their  heads  ; 

They  have  girded  themselves  with  sackcloth  : 

The  virgins  of  Jerusalem 

Hang  down  their  heads  to  the  ground. 

The  children  and  the  sucklings  swoon 

In  the  streets  of  the  city. 

They  say  to  their  mothers. 

Where  is  the  corn  and  the  wine  ? 

They  swooned  as  the  wounded  in  the  streets  of  the  city. 

Their  soul  was  poured  out 

Into'  their  mothers'  bosom. 

Arise,  cry  out  in  the  night : 

In  the  beginning  of  the  watches  pour  forth  thy  heart  like  water 

Before  the  face  of  the  Lord  : 

Lift  up  thy  hands  towards  Him  for  the  life  of  thy  young  children. 

That  faint  for  hunger 

In  the  top  of  every  street. 

Nothing  can  equal  the  force  of  thi.s  picture  painted  in 
the  very  colours  of  woe,  dark  against  the  blackness  of  the 
silent  awful  night — the  old  men,  the  children  and  sucklings, 
the  mothers  who  have  no  food  or  consolation  to  give.  Pitiful 
women,  helpless  old  men,  still  more  helpless  babes !  and  this 
is  Zion,  the  glory  of  the  Hebrews,  the  city  of  David,  the 
city  of  God  !  "  All  that  pass  by  thee  clap  their  hands  at 
thee ;  they  hiss  and  wag  their  heads,  saying.  Is  this  the 
city  that  men  call  the  perfection  of  beauty,  the  joy  of  the 
whole  earth  ?  "  Further  words  but  mar  the  perfection  of  a 
description  so  heartrending,  so  simple,  and  so  sublime. 

Yet  as  he  sits  and  muses  broken  gleams  of  other  things 
flit  across  the  poet's  mind  ;  he  recalls  his  past  life,  such  a  life 
•as  it  has  been,  bowed  down  from  youth  up  under  the  burden  of 
this  foreshadowed  desolation  which  now  has  come  ;  how  he 
was  a  derision  to  the  people  :  how  he  called  upon  the  name 
of  the  Lord  out  of  the  low  dungeon,  how  he  was  "  the  music," 


288  THE  PROPHETS 


the  mountebank  as  it  were,  of  the  disdainful  crowd  :  yet  in 
the  midst  of  all  sorrowfully  reminds  himself  of  the  hand  that 
had  sustained  him;  of  how  the  mercies  of  God  were  new  to 
him  every  morning,  and  the  Lord  the  portion  of  his  soul. 
All  this  floats  like  a  film  across  his  vision,  the  deepest 
darkness,  broken  by  a  fitful  gleam  of  light ;  until  once 
more  his  mourning  eyes  turn  to  that  city  of  death  and 
once  more  his  heart  rises  to  heaven  in  the  cry  of  a  pity 
which  is  almost  too  poignant  for  words.  The  children  !  it 
is  the  sight  of  them  in  their  destitution  which  is  the  most 
dreadful  of  all.  The  tongue  of  the  sucking  child  cleaveth 
to  the  roof  of  his  mouth,  the  young  children  ask  for  bread 
and  no  man  breaketh  it  to  them  :  and  there  are  still  more, 
and  more  awful  horrors  behind.  Other  cities  have  been 
as  Jerusalem  left  desolate  by  the  destroyer,  fire  consuming 
the  walls  and  palaces  for  which  men  have  died,  the  wretched 
and  helpless  inhabitants  left  in  their  misery  to  perish  slowly 
over  the  spot  where  their  natural  protectors  lie  among  the 
heaps  of  the  slain  :  but  none  have  had  the  same  celebration, 
none  has  impressed  itself  in  the  same  way  upon  the  recol- 
lection of  men. 

There  came  no  peaceful  end,  no  comfort  in  his  old  age, 
to  the  prophet  of  woe.  His  protector  Gedaliah  the  newly- 
appointed  governor  of  Jerusalem  bore  his  mournful  office 
but  a  very  short  time,  and  was  cruelly  murdered  at  Mizpah 
by  a.  certain  Ishmael  the  son  of  Nethaniah  who  belonged 
to  the  house  of  David,  and  therefore,  perhaps,  felt  himself 
the  natural  enemy  of  the  governor  appointed  by  the 
Babylonians.  This  act  overthrew  all  the  feeble  beginnings 
of  order  and  restoration  and  threw  everything  into  renewed 
anarchy  and  misery.  The  murderer  carried  off  a  few 
relics  of  the  people  who  had  taken  refuge  in  Mizpah,  among 
whom  were  the  king's  daughters,  the  children  spared  when 
their  brothers  were  killed,  for  the  sake,  perhaps,  of  their 
harmlessness  and  incapacity  to  lead  any  future  rebellion  ; 
but  was  stopped  in  his  flight  to  Ammon  by  another  captain, 
Johanan  the  son  of  Kareah,  who  had  gathered  a  few  soldiers 
round   him   and   delivered   these  captives.      The  state  of  the 


CHAP.  II  JEREMIAH  289 

country  thus  pervaded  by  wandering  bands,  suspicious  and 
full  of  alarms,  not  daring  to  go  back  to  Jerusalem,  afraid  to 
settle  anywhere,  is  very  vividly  set  forth. by  these  incidents. 
Johanan  made  a  halt  near  Bethlehem  on  the  way  to  Egypt, 
and  there  consulted  Jeremiah — who  being  specially  attached 
to  Gedaliah  was  probably  among  those  who  had  been  with 
that  unfortunate  ruler  at  Mizpah — with  much  solemnity 
as  to  what  they  should  do.  "  Pray  for  us  unto  the  Lord  thy 
God  "  ;  in  their  cowed  and  broken  spirits  they  seem  incap- 
able even  of  claiming  the  protection  of  Jehovah  on  their 
own  account  as  the  God  of  their  fathers.  "  That  the  Lord 
thy  God  may  show  us  the  way  wherein  we  may  walk,  and 
the  thing  we  may  do."  Jeremiah  brought  them  back  a 
message  full  of  comfort,  bidding  them  to  dwell  in  the  land 
and  they  should  have  peace  ;  but  that  in  Egypt  upon  which 
their  minds  were  bent  nothing  but  war  and  the  sword 
awaited  them.  The  -anxious  chiefs,  however,  would  not 
listen  to  this  reassuring  voice,  and  marched  on  with  their 
helpless  hangers-on  to  Egypt,  dragging  the  prophet  with 
them.  There  he  found  himself  transferred  but  from  one 
nest  of  idolaters  to  another,  the  exiles  of  Judah  throwing 
themselves  with  greater  fervour  than  ever  into  that  worship 
of  the  queen  of  heaven,  the  framework  of  nature,  which 
they  had  already  carried  on  in  Jerusalem.  The  story  of 
the  prophet's  meeting  and  contention  with,  first  the  women 
who  were  evidently  engaged  in  some  great  public  cere- 
monial of  worship,  and  of  the  men,  their  husbands  and 
guardians  who  defended  and  adopted  thdir  action,  is  very 
curious  ;  rest  or  hope  was  not  for  God's  messenger  either  in 
Jerusalem  or  among  the  fugitives. 

In  the  last  portion  of  his  book  his  imagination  warms 
with  a  stronger  and  bolder  strain,  not  unlike  the  inspired 
rhapsodies  of  Isaiah  over  the  seething  and  agitated  world 
around  him.  Sick,  perhaps,  of  contention  with  his  own 
people  he  lets  the  cherished  name  drop  from  his  lips,  and 
gazes  far  from  him  at  the  tumults  of  the  other  nations  less 
dear,  to  hide  from  himself  the  continued  perversions  and 
wicked    folly  of  his   own    people   that   were   under  his   eyes. 

U 


290  THE  PROPHETS 


He  looks,  over  their  heads  as  it  were,  far  afield  to  the 
great  empire  which  had  engulfed  the  kingdom  of  Judah, 
to  Edom  and  Moab  and  Philistia  which  had  rejoiced  over 
its  fall.  Clouds  and  darkness  are  over  them  all,  trouble 
and  misery  and  downfall  coming  even  for  the  greatest, 
Babylon,  the  great  Babylon,  doomed  to  perish  even  more 
completely  than  Jerusalem  :  her  conqueror  approaching 
out  of  the  north  as  she  herself  came  in  her  strength.  But  at 
last — in  the  end  of  all — a  brighter  inspiration  returns.  The 
prophet  had  sung  in  dungeons  and  prisons  in  the  old  days, 
of  that  time  to  come  when  the  Lord,  the  Branch  of  David, 
should  appear  on  the  mountains  of  Judah,  and  when  evil 
should  be  redressed  and  every  captive  go  free,  and  the 
throne  be  established  for  evermore  a  throne  of  righteousness. 
So  now  in  the  days  of  his  fading  life,  amid  the  dusky 
crowds  of  Egypt,  amid  the  apostates  of  his  own  race, 
everything  hopeless  about  him,  and ,  around  flaming  skies 
of  portent  and  evil  omens,  terrible  flashings  of  the  sword  of 
vengeance  wherever  he  looked — there  comes  at  last  one 
gleam  of  radiance  over  the  hills,  one  voice  of  celestial 
harmony  in  his  strained  and  well-nigh  hopeless  ear. 

In  those  days,  and  in  that  time,  saith  the  Lord, 

The  children  of  Israel  shall  come. 

They  and  the  children  of  Judah  together,  going  and  weeping  : 

They  shall  go,  and  seek  the  Lord  their  God. 

They  shall  ask  their  way  to  Zio.n  with  their  faces  thitherward,  saying, 

Come,  and  let  us  join  ourselves  unto  the  Lord 

In  a  perpetual  covenant 

That  shall  not  be  forgotten. 

Thus  the  sun  bursts  once  more  from  the  clouds,  and 
sheds  a  glow  of  light  ineffable  upon  the  conclusion  of  that 
troubled  and  darksome  way.  It  is  believed  that  he  died 
in  Egypt  in  a  depth  of  national  distress  more  dark  and 
hopeless  than  that  in  Babylon  :  for  the  exiles  in  Egypt  were 
in  a  voluntary  captivity  and  to  them  no  promise  of  restora- 
tion ever  came. 


CHAPTER    III 

EZEKIEL 

The  prophet  Ezekiel  introduces  an  entirely  new  figure  into 
the  record  which  is  so  full  of  human  life  and  feeling,  as  well 
as  of  the  mysterious  elements  of  revelation.  He  is  not  a 
man  like  those  whom  we  have  already  seen,  inspired  with 
great  moral  teachings,  and  bent  by  every  means  upon  press- 
ing with  all  their  might  the  high  lessons  of  Divine  justice, 
the  evils  of  human  selfishness,  weakness,  and  indifference, 
upon  the  world.  This  has  been  the  first  and  greatest  motive 
both  of  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah.  Their  visions  of  the  future 
were  their  reward,  and  a  crown  of  hope  to  all  those  faithful 
among  the  faithless,  whose  trust  in  the  promises  of  God 
was  met  at  every  point  by  the  terrible  contradiction  of  a 
nation  going  ever  and  ever  more  hopelessly  astray,  and  a 
race  which  abjured  every  condition  upon  which  those  pro- 
mises hacT  been  given.  But  their  object,  pursued  by  per- 
petual remonstrance,  appeal,  threatening,  entreaty,  renewing 
all  the  old  pledges  of  Divine  law,  offering  ever  a  new  certainty 
of  continuance  if  Israel  would  only  obey — was  to  bring  that 
unruly  people  to  the  better  way,  and  to  re-establish  God's 
kingdom  among  them.  For  this  they  sought  every  argu- 
ment, exhausted  every  image,  the  highest  resources  of  poetr}' 
to  persuade  and  induce,  the  strongest  reasonings  to  convince, 
the  ever-reiterated  presentation  before  the  Hebrew  audience 
of  what  must  follow  disobedience,  the  fullest  picture  of  the 
forces  oppo.sed  to  them,  which  in  their  own  strength  they 
were  incapable  of  meeting.     The  bold  language  of  .symbol 


292  THE  rROPHETS 


when  words  failed,  the  picture -lesson  adapted  to  the  rudest 
mind,  of  Isaiah's  child,  of  the  piece  of  pottery  in  Jeremiah's 
hand — were  all  used  for  the  same  end.  This  was  their 
burden,  their  ceaseless  effort.  And  when  God  permitted 
these  gifted  souls,  weighed  down  by  the  national  destruction 
that  was  so  clearly  coming,  and  by  the  contradiction  of 
sinners,  and  the  hopelessness  of  averting  that  downward 
course,  to  escape  into  the  blessed  contemplation  of  a  remote 
future,  and  the  Deliverer  who  was  to  come — even  then  the 
highest  rhapsody  of  prophetic  vision  was,  as  may  be  said, 
practical,  no  vague  and  radiant  hope  of  a  golden  age,  but  a 
distinct  portrayal  of  Him  whom  they  looked  for,  a  description 
in  many  points  so  exact  that  the  wonder  is  how  it  could 
have  been  mistaken  when  the  fulfilment  came.  And  what 
is  true  of  the  chief  among  the  prophets  is  true  also  of  the 
minor  members  in  different  degrees  of  poetry  and  percep- 
tion, all  of  whom  had  the  same  lesson  to  teach,  the  same 
burden  of  prophecy  to  proclaim. 

But  Ezekiel  breaks  into  this  brotherhood,  a  different 
being,  a  strange  figure  with  neither  that  hold  upon  the  solid 
soil  of  earth  which  his  predecessors  had,  the  common  human 
life,  through  which  we  see  them  passing  among  the  crowds 
and  tumults  of  the  city,  and  all  its  occupations — or  that 
hold  upon  the  heavenly  stores  of  life  and  truth  to  come 
which  made  them  bold  to  declare  a  new  life  and  hope.  A 
wilder  and  a  stranger  figure  is  that  which  rises  before  us  on 
the  bank  of  the  Assyrian  stream  among  the  first  captives, 
in  those  early  days  when  the  failing  kingdom  still  kept  a 
precarious  life  upon  the  cliffs  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  tragedy 
of  its  ruin  had  still  to  be  played  out.  He  is,  if  we  omit, 
perhaps,  Elijah  and  Elisha,  those  prophets  whom  we  know 
only  by  their  legends,  so  to  speak,  by  their  acts  and  the 
historical  record,  not  by  any  preserved  writings — the  greatest 
mystic  of  Scripture,  involved  in  musings  incomprehensible, 
seeing  visions  of  which  the  import  escapes  us,  overfull  of 
mystery  and  wonder  for  ordinary  perceptions,  dazzled  by 
glories  and  appearances  which  human  words  fail  to  interpret. 
That  he  pursues   throughout,  though  with   so   many  strange 


CHAP.  Ill  EZEKIEL  293 

variants,  the  same  objects  as  the  others,  that  he,  too,  warns 
and  threatens,  entreats  and  beseeches,  and  that  to  him  also 
in  other  forms  the  glorious  revelation  of  the  future  is  also 
permitted,  is  true  indeed.  But  he  is  throughout  a  thau- 
maturge, a  seer  in  a  meaning  of  the  word  very  different 
from  that  of  Isaiah,  a  being  full  of  unearthly  knowledge  and 
strange  visions,  less  of  what  is  to  come  on  earth,  which  is 
the  preoccupation  of  the  others — than  of  what  exists  in 
that  unseen  which  is  beyond  human  faculties,  and  of  which 
human  words  are  incapable  of  presenting  any  clear  idea 
to  men. 

Along  with  this,  however,  we  have  in  the  scraps  of  nar- 
rative which  occur  between  his  visions  and  prophecies  a  very 
remarkable  picture  of  an  agitated  period,  full  of  the  most 
terrible  alternations  of  hope  and  fear,  of  personal  misery 
and  humiliation,  and  of  a  national  agony  which  in  all  the 
experiences  of  the  world  has  never  been  so  fully  expressed, 
or  with  so  much  pathos  and  passion. 

By  the  river  of  Babylon,  there  we  sat  down  ; 
We  wept  when  we  remembered  Zion. 
We  hanged  our  harps 
Upon  the  willows  in  the  midst  thereof. 

For  there  they  that  carried  us  away  captive. 
And  they  that  wasted  us, 
Required  of  us  a  song,  saying, 
Sing  us  one  of  the  songs  of  Zion. 

How  shall  we  sing  the  Lord's  song 
In  a  strange  land  ? 

We  have  no  parallel  to  this  in  all  the  world  of  literature, 
or  to  the  impassioned  cry  which  no  Greek,  no  Roman 
patriotism  has  ever  given  utterance  to  with  such  heartrending 
force  :  "  If  I  forget  thee,  O  Jerusalem,  let  my  right  hand 
forget  her  cunning!"  It  was  among  the  exiles  with  whom 
this  was  the  prevailing  sentiment  that  Ezekiel,  a  young  man 
at  that  recognised  moment  of  fitness  for  office  and  privilege 
and  the  highest  work,  his  thirtieth  year,  was  suddenly  called 
by  the  voice  of  the  Lord,  and  consecrated  by  visions  ineffable 


294       V  THE  PROPllErS 


to  the  service  of  God  and  of  his  countrymen.  He  had  been 
presumably  brought  to  Babylon  with  the  young  king  Jehoia- 
chin  five  years  before,  to  rejoin  many  captives  of  the  previous 
reign  already  there  :  and  probably  also  to  find  the  remnant  of 
an  older  captivity  still,  the  relics  of  Israel,  half  identified  at 
the  end  of  a  century  with  the  people  among  whom  they  had 
been  thrown,  yet,  no  doubt,  preserving  many  points  of  contact 
and  much  compassionate  sympathy  for  the  detachments  of 
the  Jews  arriving  one  band  after  another  in  the  same  con- 
dition of  dishonour  and  deprivation.  Israel,  however,  had 
now  been  long  lost  amid  the  hordes  of  aliens,  and  had  no 
national  hope  or  centre  to  make  a  rallying  point,  except  so 
far  as,  in  the  ponderings  of  years,  the  wise  among  them  may 
have  felt  that  in  the  one  point  of  Jerusalem,  and  in  the  still 
undestroyed  throne  of  David,  there  lingered  yet  a  forlorn 
hope.  That  the  minds  of  the  captive  community — from  those 
high-placed  and  princely  boys  who  served  Nebuchadnezzar 
in  his  palace,  to  those  who  sat  in  the  shade  of  the  willows 
and  had  as  yet  recovered  no  energy  or  sense  of  a  life  still 
remaining  to  be  lived  out — were  fixed  with  an  intensity 
almost  beyond  parallel  upon  their  distant  home,  is  apparent 
to  us  in  almost  every  record.  Their  gaze  was  turned  upon 
Jerusalem  with  something  of  the  breathless  and  strained 
attention  with  which  spectators  watch  a  doomed  ship  in  the 
midst  of  a  tempest :  her  efforts  to  gain  some  sheltering 
harbour,  the  efforts  made  on  her  behalf,  the  sinking  and 
rising  of  the  broken  hulk,  with  one  poor  flag  of  despair  flutter- 
ing in  the  wild  winds  upon  a  spar,  which  from  moment  to 
moment  may  disappear  in  the  blankness  of  the  waves  that 
rage  about  it — enchaining  their  every  thought. 

Jerusalem  was  like  such  a  ship,  carrying  one  feeble 
ensign  of  national  unity  and  hope,  upon  which  every  eye 
was  strained  as  it  rose  and  fell.  The  captives  cared  little 
for  the  troublous  incidents  of  their  own  daily  life.  Hope  that 
these  were  to  endure  but  a  little  while,  that  some  interposi- 
tion would  be  made  in  their  favour,  some  Divine  deliverance 
come  to  them,  and  that  they  might  at  any  mofnent  hear  the 
joyful  summons  to  return,  was  what  they  dwelt  upon.      Their 


ciiAi'.  Ill  EZEKIEL  29S 

very  aspect  shows  this  suspense,  which  kept  all  existence 
in  solution,  and  made  all  the  common  uses  of  humanity 
as  burdens.  "  I  was  among  the  captives  by  the  river  of 
Chebar  ...  I  sat  where  they  sat,  and  remained  there 
astonished  (silent)  among  them  for  seven  days."  The  words 
sound  like  a  very  realisation  of  the  Psalm.  Were  they  too 
languid  for  any  exertion,  sitting  under  the  willows,  thinking 
of  nothing  but  their  Jerusalem,  the  home  of  their  hearts  ? 
The  elders  appear  in  after -glimpses,  and  sit  before  the 
prophet  waiting  in  a  sort  of  deadly  patience,  abstracted  from 
common  life,  for  the  message  he  has  to  bring  them.  They 
were,  perhaps,  a  band  of  Levites,  trained  to  no  handicrafts, 
but  only  the  service  of  the  Temple,  who  had  come  to  this 
pass,  their  occupation  taken  from  them  as  well  as  their  object 
in  life,  and  themselves  considered  by  the  Babylonians,  their 
masters,  as  a  mere  lazy  company  of  professional  musicians, 
good  for  nothing  since  they  would  not  even  sing.  It  would 
almost  seem  to  have  been  in  some  such  forlorn  colony  that 
Ezekiel,  the  priest,  the  son  of  Buzi,  was  called  to  his  office. 
Somewhere  about  the  same  time  Jeremiah  in  Jerusalem  had 
written  a  letter  to  the  exiles — brought  by  the  embassy  sent 
from  King  Zedekiah  with  tribute  or  renewal  of  homage  to 
the  King  of  Babylon  :  in  which  he  adjured  them  to  disre- 
gard the  false  promises  of  deliverance  made  to  them  by 
unauthorised  prophets,  and  to  build  houses  and  plant  gardens 
and  surround  themselves  with  families  :  in  short  to  enter 
upon  all  the  routine  of  settled  life  in  the  country  where  their 
lot  was  now  cast,  and  from  which  in  the  lifetime  of  the 
present  generation  there  was  likely  to  be  no  deliverance. 
Perhaps,  at  the  period  of  Ezekiel's  call,  this  exhortation  had 
not  yet  reached  Babylon  in  the  long  delays  of  the  terrible 
road  four  months'  journey  across  the  desert.  Perhaps,  it 
never  did  reach  the  humble  colony  on  the  banks  of  the 
Chebar,  apart  from  the  greater  current  of  life. 

The  extreme  absorption  of  their  every  thought  and  feel- 
ing in  the  fate  of  Jerusalem,  is  vividly  apparent  in  the  .sort 
of  object-lesson  which  the  prophet  is  told  to  give — whether 
in  some  part  for  the  instruction  of  the  people,  whether  to  give 


296  THE  PROPHETS 


him  in  his  own  person  so  vivid  a  sense  of  the  inevitable 
calamity  that  every  utterance  would  be  thereby  strengthened, 
it  is  impossible  to  say.  He  was  "  to  portray  the  city, 
even  Jerusalem,"  upon  a  tile,  with  all  the  details  of  the 
siege,  the  military  mounds  raised  outside  the  walls,  the 
high  tower  which  enabled  the  besiegers  to  discharge  their 
missiles  with  effect,  the  battering  rams,  and  all  other  instru- 
ments of  war.  No  doubt  the  captives  would  gather  round 
to  watch  while  he  drew  on  the  soft  unbaked  clay,  upon  which 
the  builders  of  Babylon  scratched  all  manner  of  names  and 
symbols,  the  outline  of  the  city  with  all  its  towers,  and  the 
hosts  encamped  against  it.  What  a  thing  would  that  be  to 
find  in  some  Babylonian  wreck  or  mass  of  ruins,  the  rude 
drawing  on  the  brick  or  tile,  the  indications  of  gateway  and 
rampart  which  every  breathless  watcher  over  his  shoulder 
would  recognise,  as  he  formed  them  with  unskilful  hand ! 
There  on  the  tower  of  the  northern  gate  would  be  King 
Uzziah's  engines  invented  by  cunning  men  "  to  shoot  arrows 
and  great  stones  withal,"  and  there,  opposite,  the  last  refine- 
ment of  war,  Nebuchadnezzar's  offensive  works,  confronting 
the  other  to  still  the  defensive  battery.  Would  the  prophet, 
careless  of  personal  comfort  as  are  all  the  religious  devotees 
of  the  East,  prepare  his  polluted  food  before  them,  and  lie 
down  upon  his  side  for  days  and  nights  to  show  how  the 
sins  of  Jerusalem  weighed  upon  his  heart,  and  how  long  and 
tedious  would  the  time  be  before  deliverance  ?  Who  can 
tell  ?  Those  symbols  and  wild  lessons  of  dramatic  repre- 
sentation are  the  alphabet  of  the  primitive  races.  For  the 
same  end  he  shaved  off  his  beard  and  hair,  to  show  how,  as  that 
hair  was  consumed  and  scattered  on  the  winds,  so  should  be 
the  fated  city  from  which  no  deliverance  could  come.  And 
amid  all  the  stern  significance  of  those  lessons  what  sights  of 
wonder  came  to  him  between — the  incomprehensible  glory 
which  human  description  can  only  confuse,  the  dazzling  of 
the  great  lights  which  were  not  for  mortal  eyes! 

To  impress  still  more  upon  his  mournful  audience  that 
burden  of  his  soul,  the  doom  of  Jerusalem,  the  beloved 
home  from  which  the  captives  could  not  detach  their  hopes. 


CHAP.  Ill  EZEKIEL  297 

which  all  that  was  best  in  them  still  clung  to,  with  a 
despairing  conviction  that  at  the  last  God  must  stand  forth 
miraculously  to  deliver  the  city  which  He  had  chosen,  and 
which  was  identified  with  His  worship  and  name — there  was 
given  to  the  prophet  a  vision,  showing  the  moral  condition 
of  that  once  holy  city.  A  little  more  than  a  year  after  his 
first  call  Ezekiel  sat  in  his  house,  "  and  the  elders  of  Judah 
sat  before  me,"  waiting  in  melancholy  silence  for  the  expected 
message  ;  when  suddenly  the  prophet  was  rapt  into  that  state 
in  which  the  faculty  of  vision  came  to  him — fell,  as  we  should 
say,  into  a  sort  of  trance — in  which  his  spirit  was  suddenly 
transported  to  Jerusalem,  "  to  the  door  of  the  inner  gate 
that  looketh  towards  the  north,  where  was  the  seat  of  the 
image  of  jealousy,"  no  doubt  some  image  of  Baal,  or  other 
idol  such  as  many  successive  kings  had  not  scrupled  to  bring 
into  the  house  of  the  Lord.  Ezekiel  had  been  familiar  with 
those  courts  and  all  they  contained  in  his  youth  when,  as  a 
priest's  son,  he  had  been  brought  up  in  the  precincts  of  the 
Temple.  "  The  glory  of  the  Lord  was  there  " — that  dazzling 
radiance  of  holiness  and  light  which  Ezekiel  with  faltering 
lips  had  endeavoured  to  describe  to  the  astonished  people : 
but  it  remained  outside  the  walls  :  and  with  that  glory  in 
his  eyes  the  prophet  looked  at  the  rigid  features  of  the  idol 
in  its  immovable  helplessness  with  righteous  contempt.  But 
such  a  vacant  monument  of  idolatry  was  little  in  comparison 
with  what  remained.  In  one  of  the  many  buildings  which 
surrounded  the  Temple,  and  which  were  used  as  public 
offices,  treasuries,  and  arsenals,  and  also  for  the  dwellings 
of  the  priests  as  they  served  in  their  courses,  he  looked 
in  and  saw  "  the  idols  of  the  house  of  Israel "  painted 
upon  the  wall  :  "  every  form  of  creeping  things  and 
abominable  beasts,"  the  golden  calves,  no  doubt,  the 
sacred  cow  of  Egypt,  the  monkeys  and  snakes  which  have 
in  their  turn  represented  the  framework  of  nature  and 
its  law  to  the  debased  imagination — the  Ascidian,  perhaps,  of 
our  own  disguised  idolatry  and  mocking  worship.  Seventy 
men  of  the  elders  of  Israel — among  them  one  whom  he 
recognised,  Jaazaniah  the  son  of  Shaphan,  the  degenerate  son 


298  THE  PROPHETS 


of  a  good  father — stood  offering  incense  to  these  beasts  and 
crawHng  things.  Yet  was  not  this  all.  Outside  in  the  gate 
the  women,  who  seem  in  the  distorted  state  of  the  race  to 
have  been,  not  as  usual  the  most  faithful  to  the  worship  of 
God,  but  foremost  in  every  infidelity,  sat  weeping  for  Thamuz  : 
and  passing  by  them,  in  the  very  inner  court  at  the  entrance 
to  the  Temple  itself — between  the  gate  and  the  altar 
which  stood  close  to  the  gate — the  prophet  saw  five-and- 
tvventy  men,  with  their  backs  turned  to  the  Temple  and  their 
faces  towards  the  east,  worshipping  the  sun,  which  shone  over 
Olivet  across  the  deep  valley  upon  all  the  glistening  pinnacles 
of  the  house  of  God.  This  was,  we  cannot  but  think,  a  more 
refined  and  elevating  worship  than  that  of  the  reptile  and 
the  brute  :  but  it  was  equally  the  worship  of  those  natural 
forces  in  which  no  deliverance,  but  only  a  remorseless  fulfil- 
ment of  the  course  of  nature,  lies.  The  course  of  nature 
with  Jerusalem  was  assuredly  destruction  under  the  hand  of 
a  power  far  stronger  than  she.  And  to  that  course  and  to 
those  powers  the  city  was  given  up.  From  the  moral 
government  of  God  and  His  succour  and  help,  as  well  as 
from  His  ordinances  and  commandments  which  were  the 
condition  of  His  promises,  they  had  turned  away,  turned  their 
backs  in  the  emphatic  language  of  the  prophet  ;  and  now  to 
the  course  of  nature  they  were  irrevocably  left. 

When  he  comes  back  from  his  trance  and  takes  up 
once  more  the  usual  means  of  prophecy,  Ezekiel  is  not  less 
emphatic  in  his  unvarying  tale.  Jeremiah  in  the  disturbed 
and  struggling  city,  and  he  so  far  away  among  the  longing 
exiles  whose  continual  thought  is  Jerusalem,  proclaim  again 
and  again  the  same  solemn  message.  They  illustrate  it  by 
every  possible  image,  bring  every  symbol  and  picture  within 
their  reach  to  their  aid.  In  the  case  of  Ezekiel  the  effort, 
if  not  less  discouraging  and  sad,  could  not,  at  all  events,  be 
so  distracting,  so  opposite  to  what  might  seem  the  last 
heroic  struggle  of  patriotism,  as  in  his  brother  prophet  : 
but  his  view  of  the  dreadful  prospect  before  the  doomed 
people  is  not  less  sombre  or  terrible.  To  the  elders  who 
come  and   sit  round   him,  always  hopeful,  it  would   appear, 


CHAi'.  Ill  EZEKIEL  299 

that  some  happier  inspiration  might  be  given,  he  never  changes 
his  tone.  Sometimes  he  turns  with  indignation  upon  them- 
selves as  men  who  still  maintain  their  idolatries  in  their 
hearts,  though  they  would  seem  to  have  been  effectually 
startled  and  shaken  out  of  them  in  outward  manifestation — 
and  upon  the  false  prophets  both  men  and  women  who  gain 
a  moment's  popularity  by  flattering  visions,  by  promises  of 
restoration  and  deliverance.  Sometimes  he  thunders  against 
the  puppet-king  Zedekiah,  with  a  curious  forestallment  of 
the  theories  of  legitimacy :  although  the  question  (even  had  it 
ever  been  a  dogma  of  the  East)  was  doubly  complicated  in  those 
days,  when  a  captive  king  in  Egypt  and  another  in  Babylon 
must  have  confused  the  minds  even  of  those  who  refused 
to  consider  Jehoiachin  who  was  set  up  by  Pharaoh,  and 
Zedekiah  who  was  set  up  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  as  true 
sovereigns  of  Judah. 

But  whatever  may  be  those  side-glances  of  prophecy,  the 
one  actual  fact  of  the  approaching  destruction  of  the  city  and 
with  it  all  their  present  hopes,  never  varies.  In  his  frequent 
trances  and  transportations  in  the  spirit  from  the  plains  of 
Babylon  to  the  heights  of  Moriah — whether  he  bursts  into 
the  wild  lyric  of  the  sword,  that  mystic  weapon  which  is  fur- 
bished and  flashes  to  the  sun  to  smite  the  princes  of  Israel,  to 
cut  down  the  great  trees,  to  hew  asunder  the  gates,  "  A  sword, 
a  sword  is  sharpened,  it  is  drawn  forth  for  slaughter ! " — or 
paints  with  tremendous  force  the  adulteries  of  the  two 
wantons  Aholah  and  Aholibah,  Israel  and  Judah,  and  their 
love  of  strangers,  the  men  "  who  were  all  of  them  like 
princes  to  look  at,"  his  object  never  changes.  These 
wantons  have  had  their  will,  they  have  turned  from  their 
allegiance  and  broken  every  vow  ;  and  now  the  inevitable 
end  has  come  upon  them,  which  overtakes  all  wantons, 
according  to  those  very  laws  of  nature  which  they  preferred 
to  the  law  of  God. 

There  is  something  very  startling  and  wonderful  in  the 
description  of  tho.se  "  men  portrayed  upon  the  wall,  the  images 
of  the  Chaldeans  portrayed  with  vermilion,  girded  with  girdles 
about  their  loins,  exceeding  in  dyed  attire  upon  their  heads," 


30O  THE  PROPHETS 


which  he  describes  as  having  charmed  the  imagination  of  the 
Hebrews  before  their  revelation  as  conquerors  and  destroyers. 
While  Ezekiel,  with  his  rapt  eyes,  beheld  the  prophetic  vision, 
while  the  silent  elders  sat  round  him,  and  saw  with  dismay 
the  great  sword  flash  forth,  and  listened  with  downcast 
heads  to  his  parable  of  Judah's  guilt — there  were  rising 
gaily  in  Babylon  and  still  surviving  in  the  half- abandoned 
Nineveh,  great  buildings,  decorated  with  those  wonderful 
images,  which  have  come  to  light  only  in  our  own  day. 
Those  black -bearded  Assyrians  "all  of  them  like  princes 
to  look  at,"  whose  glory  beguiled  the  daughters  of  Jerusalem, 
now  adorn  our  museums  as  they  adorned  the  walls  of  every 
palace  and  temple  in  Ezekiel's  day  in  the  freshness  of  their 
crimson  and  gold.  The  artists  were  busy  everywhere, 
improving,  no  doubt,  upon  the  Ninevite  models,  adding  a 
twisted  scarf  upon  those  black  locks,  a  jewel  to  the  girdle, 
a  pattern  to  the  tunic,  which  even  the  captives  would  go 
sighing  forth  to  see  in  the  desolation  of  their  exile,  a  wonder 
to  behold.  How  strange  to  bring  out  the  decorations  of 
those  pictured  walls  thousands  of  years  after,  to  show  us 
in  the  ends  of  the  earth  what  manner  of  men  were  those 
conquerors  of  the  ancient  world,  like  princes  to  look  at, 
the  Assyrians,  Chaldeans,  Babylonians — the  captors  of 
Judah,  the  victorious  and  not  all  unfriendly  race  ! 

In  another  picture  the  prophet  shows  us  the  King  of 
Babylon  standing  "  at  the  parting  of  the  way,  at  the  head 
of  two  ways,"  to  try  by  divination  whether  the  time  had 
come  to  destroy  Jerusalem.  In  his  grasp  were  arrows, 
marked  with  the  lot,  which  he  shook  in  his  hand  according 
to  an  immemorial  custom.  And  he  also  "  consulted  with 
images,  he  looked  in  the  liver,"  trying  the  auguries  of 
classic  usage,  which  would  thus  seem  to  have  been  already 
existing  from  the  remotest  time.  Then  came  the  day,  the 
dreadful  day,  when  the  decision  was  made.  "  Woe  to  the 
bloody  city!"  cries  the  prophet:  "I  the  Lord  have  spoken, 
I  will  not  go  back,  neither  will  I  spare,  neither  will  I  repent : 
according  to  thy  ways  and  according  to  thy  doings  shall 
he   judge   thee,   saith  the   Lord   God."      With   what  terrible 


CHAP.  Ill  EZEKIEL  301 

interest  must  the  captives  have  h'stened,  with  what  outcries 
of  remonstrance  and  indignation,  "  Be  it  far  from  us  !  "  with 
what  trembHng  of  heart !  Their  sons  and  their  daughters, 
their  fathers  and  mothers,  were  left  behind  in  the  doomed 
city.  If  this  were  true,  what  was  there  more  in  Hfe  to  hope 
for?  How  were  they  to  endure  the  dread  suspense,  the 
still  more  dreadful  certainty  of  fate  ?  the  horror  of  knowing, 
the  greater  horror  of  not  knowing,  for  long  months  of 
anguish  before  the  swiftest  foot  could  cross  the  great  desert, 
the  plains  and  mountains  that  lay  between  them  and  their 
home  ? 

In  the  midst  of  their  confusion  and  terror  a  sign  of  the 
most  appalling  description  was  given  to  the  exiles.  "  Son 
of  man,  behold,  I  take  from  thee  the  desire  of  thine  eyes  with 
a  stroke."  What  was  this  mystic  menace,  this  sorrow  sent  not 
for  Ezekiel's  sake,  but  to  make  him  more  and  more  a  sign  and 
parable,  a  living  lesson  to  his  people  ?  The  desire  of  his  eyes  ! 
yet  he  was  to  make  no  mourning,  to  shed  no  tears,  to  show 
none  of  the  usual  signs  of  grief  The  company  of  the 
captives  must  have  kept  the  prophet's  house  in  sight  during 
that  dreadful  day,  wondering  if  fire  would  come  from  heaven, 
if  some  great  preternatural  portent  would  appear :  the 
sceptics,  perhaps,  with  an  incredulous  smile  watching  to 
see  what  new  antic  the  madman  would  be  at — as,  after  the 
event  they  would,  no  doubt,  say  it  was  nothing  but  a 
natural  occurrence,  perhaps  foreseen,  callously  calculated 
upon  to  make  an  impression  !  The  prophet's  narrative 
is  calm  as  despair  itself  "  So  I  spake  unto  the  people  in 
the  morning,"  not  knowing  what  the  calamity  was  that 
threatened  him,  but  knowing  it  must  be  supreme.  "  And 
at  even  my  wife  died  ;  and  I  did  in  the  morning  as  I  was 
commanded."  Not  often  in  Eastern  records  is  a  wife  spoken 
of  in  this  tone,  God  himself  recognising  the  first  object  of 
the  man's  heart.  The  desire  of  thine  eyes !  it  was  the  most 
perfect  symbol  of  that  great  desolation  in  which  all  external 
emblems  of  woe  would  be  forgotten,  so  tremendous  and 
universal  would  be  the  calamity. 

Nothing  can   be  added    to    this    wonderful    scene :  the 


302  THE  PROPHETS 


whole  Jewish  community  were  like  Ezekiel  as  he  stood  in 
that  moment  of  suspense.  The  fate  of  their  nearest  and 
dearest  was  hanging  in  the  balance  :  while  they  drew  their 
terrified  breath  the  sword,  the  sword  of  which  they  had 
heard,  was  coming  down  upon  kindred  and  friends  :  torture 
and  misery,  starvation,  burning,  every  evil  that  the  imagination 
could  conceive :  while  those  unhappy  listeners,  spectators, 
were  helpless,  unable  to  lift  a  finger.  Would  they  follow 
confused  and  terror-stricken  while  Ezekiel's  wife  was  laid  in 
her  strange  grave,  he,  speechless  man  of  many  utterances 
silenced  by  the  same  stroke  that  widowed  him,  stalking 
tearless  by  the  bier  in  his  ordinary  apparel  ?  "  Ye  shall  do 
as  I  have  done  :  ye  shall  not  mourn  nor  weep  ;  but  ye  shall 
pine  away  for  your  iniquities,  and  mourn  one  toward  another." 
No  cries  of,  O  Lord  !  or  O  my  brother !  no  ashes  on  the 
head,  no  rites  of  sepulture — but  only  the  silence  of  one 
universal  horrible  calamity  too  great  for  human  signs  or 
words. 

After  this  tremendous  picture  and  the  predictions  that 
accompanied  it  the  prophet  would  seem  to  have  been  dumb, 
either  metaphorically  as  saying  no  more  upon  this  subject 
which  occupied  all  thoughts,  or  actually.  There  is  a  long 
interval  in  his  book  (which  by  no  means  certainly,  however, 
implies  a  direct  chronological  succession)  during  which  a 
number  of  prophecies  concerning  other  nations,  comparatively 
dark  to  us  who  have  no  material  by  which  to  judge  of  their 
accuracy,  are  inserted  :  and  it  is  not  till  nearly  three  years 
after,  that  the  next  incident  which  more  nearly  concerns  us 
occurs.  While  he  is  sitting  musing,  perhaps  writing  down 
the  message  that  has  been  given  to  him  concerning  Egypt, 
troubled  all  night  with  strange  sensations,  the  premonitory 
symptoms  of  some  great  event  and  visitation,  the  messenger 
of  fate  accomplished  suddenly  appears  before  him.  "  One 
that  had  escaped  out  of  Jerusalem  came  to  me,  saying,  The 
city  is  smitten.  Now  the  hand  of  the  Lord  was  upon  me  in 
the  evening,  afore  he  that  was  escaped  came  ;  and  had  opened 
my  mouth,  until  he  came  to  me  in  the  morning  ;  and  my 
mouth  was  opened,  and    I   was  no  more  dumb."      No  doubt 


CHAP.  Ill  EZEKIEL  303 

many  public  posts  must  have  arrived  in  the  meantime,  and 
the  news  of  the  great  victory  must  have  been  known  in 
Babylon  :  but  the  captives  by  the  Chebar  were  far  out  of  the 
capital,  and  most  likely  nothing  but  a  vague  murmur  had 
reached  them,  no  detailed  news,  none  of  those  overwhelming 
particulars  which  would  make  every  family  aware  more  or 
less  what  its  own  individual  losses  were,  until  the  fellow- 
townsman  who  had  escaped — perhaps  from  the  city  itself  in 
the  confusion  of  its  overthrow,  perhaps  from  some  band  of 
captives — made  his  painful  way,  keeping  out  of  public  routes 
and  places  where  his  unaccustomed  garb  and  faltering  speech 
would  be  remarked,  through  the  country  ;  and  after  long 
delay  and  many  adventures,  reached  the  little  mournful 
colony  who  had  hung  their  harps  upon  the  willows. 

Ezekiel,  silent  in  his  desolate  house,  had  been  troubled 
all  night  with  the  sense  of  something  coming :  some 
presentiment  or  more  clear  warning,  a  trance,  or  such  a  climax 
of  long-existing  anxiety  as  makes  the  simplest  of  mankind 
prescient  of  trouble,  had  disturbed  the  prophet's  rest.  He 
had  felt  within  him  the.  sensations  of  a  change,  the  restora- 
tion of  his  speech,  the  long-suspended  movement  of  prophetic 
utterance.  "  My  mouth  was  opened,  and  I  was  no  more 
dumb."  It  requires  no  very  vivid  imagination  to  conceive 
how  the  fugitive  would  be  received,  how  the  people  would 
gather  round  him,  perhaps  with  those  precautions  which  come 
naturally  to  the  captive,  lest  their  kinsman's  tale  might  be 
interrupted  or  he  himself  endangered.  He  would  bring  not 
only  great  excitement  and  a  profound  general  sorrow,  but 
details  of  the  slaughter  and  disappearance  of  kinsfolk  and 
relatives  which  would  plunge  every  hut  and  house  into 
mourning — mourning  which  probably  had  to  be  disguised  as 
Ezekiel's  was,  lest  those  heathen  captors  who  had  called  for 
a  song  of  Zion,  should  mock  at  their  misery,  or  demand  an 
account  of  how  the  news  had  been  received.  Thus  the  full 
force  of  the  prophet's  parable  would  be  disclosed  to  them  : 
the  melancholy  little  band  would  not  dare  to  make  itself 
conspicuous  by  its  mourning  in  the  midst  of  a  land  resounding 
with  sounds  of  triumph.      It  would  not  venture  to  betray  the 


304  THE  PROPHETS 


knowledge  of  individual  calamity  which  it  had  received,  at 
least  till  the  fugitive,  no  doubt  hidden  among  them,  repre- 
sented as  this  man's  brother  or  that  man's  servant,  should 
have  found  some  refuge  in  which  he  could  be  secure.  Those 
who  heard  that  day,  perhaps  of  the  extinction  of  their  family, 
perhaps  of  the  death  of  some  gallant  son  on  the  walls  of 
Jerusalem,  or  some  daughter  shamed  and  outraged  in  its 
bloody  streets — would  make  no  outcry,  would  repress  every 
tear,  bind  their  headgear  upon  their  heads,  and  their  shoes 
on  their  feet,  with  a  pang  still  more  profound  in  the 
renunciation  of  every  sign  of  mourning,  than  we  should  feel 
in  a  similar  self-denial.  "  Ye  shall  pine  away,  and  mourn 
one  towards  another."  What  description  could  be  more 
pathetic  or  more  real  ?  The  father  and  mother  would  turn 
towards  each  other  when  they  were  alone,  in  the  silent 
communion  of  sorrow,  the  woman  clasp  her  child  to  her 
broken  heart,  the  sisters  lay  their  heads  on  each  other's 
shoulders,  in  grief  that  uttered  no  word  :  then  confront  the 
daylight  with  still  faces  and  the  dumbness  of  self-controlled 
despair,  as  Ezekiel  had  done  in  that  dark  day  when  the 
desire  of  his  eyes  had  been  taken  from  him. 

And  then  it  was  that  the  prophet's   mouth   was  opened 
and  he  burst  forth  : — 

As  I  live,  saith  the  Lord  God  .  .  .  Behold,  I,  even  I,  will  both 
search  my  sheep,  and  seek  them  out.  According  to  the  seeking  of  a 
shepherd  that  seeketh  out  his  flock  in  the  day  that  he  is  among  his 
sheep  that  are  scattered  ;  so  will  I  seek  out  my  sheep,  and  will  deliver 
them  out  of  all  places  where  they  have  been  scattered  in  the  cloudy  and 
dark  day. 

And  I  will  bring  them  out  from  the  people,  and  gather  them  from 
the  countries,  and  will  bring  them  to  their  own  land,  and  feed  them 
upon  the  mountains  of  Israel,  by  the  rivers,  and  in  all  the  inhabited 
places. 

I  will  feed  them  in  a  good  pasture,  and  upon  the  high  mountains 
of  Israel  shall  their  fold  be  : 

Then  shall  they  lie  in  a  good  fold,  and  in  a  fat  pasture  shall  they 
feed  upon  the  mountains  of  Israel. 

I  will  feed  my  flock,  and  I  will  cause  them  to  lie  down,  saith  the 
Lord  God. 

What  a  strain  was  this  to  pour  over  the  heads  of  that 


CHAP.  Ill  EZEKIEL  305 

despairing  and  heartbroken  people !  They  came  about  him 
languidly  in  the  apathy  of  their  grief,  past  consolation,  hoping 
for  no  comfort.  "  So  thou  art  to  them  as  a  very  lovely  song 
of  one  that  hath  a  pleasant  voice  and  can  play  well  on  an 
instrument "  had  been  the  explanation  of  their  attitude 
towards  the  prophet  long  before.  Even  now  in  their  despair 
this  was  how  they  sought  him,  hoping,  perhaps,  for  a  moment's 
distraction,  for  something  that  would  occupy  their  self- 
devouring  thoughts.  And  this  was  what  he  proclaimed  to 
them — no  dirge,  no  wail  of  mourning,  no  outcry  like  that 
of  Jeremiah  :  "  Behold,  and  see  if  any  sorrow  is  like  unto 
my  sorrow."  Such  a  cry,  no  doubt,  was  what  they  expected, 
what  would  have  most  soothed  their  aching  breasts.  But  no  : 
the  prophet  had  said  no  word  of  lamentation  over  his  own 
symbolical  calamity.  He  makes  no  response  now  to  the 
demand  in  their  sorrowful  eyes  :  but  to  the  captive,  to  the 
heartbroken  exile,  to  those  strayed  far  away  in  the  obscure 
corners  of  a  foreign  country,  proclaims  but  one  promise,  that 
of  restoration,  of  returning,  of  safety  and  of  home. 

And  from  this  moment  the  prophecies  of  Ezekiel,  hereto- 
fore full  of  the  utterances  of  woe,  have  nothing  but  good 
tidings  to  Israel,  promises  of  union  as  when  "  the  stick  of 
Joseph,  the  stick  of  Ephraim,"  and  "  the  stick  of  Judah  "  are 
made  into  one  in  his  hand — (a  prophecy  so  far  fulfilled  that 
though  there  was  no  official  restoration  from  captivity  of  the 
kingdom  of  Israel,  many  remnants  of  that  broken  people 
amalgamated  themselves  with  the  captive  Jews,  and  returned 
with  them,  keeping  the  name  of  their  tribes  in  individual 
instances,  notwithstanding  broken  genealogies  and  lost  tradi- 
tions)— and  renewed  pledges  that  the  land  promised  to  their 
fathers  should  again  be  theirs  in  all  its  beauty  and  fruitful- 
ncss,  its  natural  bounty  revived,  its  desolate  cities  built  again. 
"  The  Lord  shall  build  the  ruined  places,  and  plant  that 
which  was  desolate."  "  I  will  call  for  the  corn,  and  increase 
it,  and  lay  no  famine  upon  you" — "the  waste  cities  shall  be 
filled  with  flocks  of  men."  Best  of  all,  "  A  new  heart  also 
will  I  give  you,  and  a  new  spirit  will  I  put  within  you.  I 
will   put  my  Spirit  within  you,  and  cau.se  you  to  walk  in  my 

X 


3o6  THE  PROrHETS 


statutes,  and  ye  shall  keep  my  judgments,  and  do  them. 
And  ye  shall  dwell  in  the  land  that  I  gave  to  your  fathers ; 
and  ye  shall  be  my  people,  and  I  will  be  your  God." 
Strange  message  to  follow  the  crowning  disaster  of  a  race, 
its  destruction  according  to  all  precedent  and  every  prob- 
ability !  Great  Nineveh  had  fallen  utterly,  great  Babylon 
was  soon  to  fall.  And  no  restoration  came  to  these  vast 
empires  and  thrones.  But  to  little  Jerusalem  there  was 
proclaimed  another  fate ;  and  after  thousands  of  years,  after 
renewed  and  repeated  destruction  more  complete,  and  a 
dispersion  still  more  hopeless,  the  scattered  descendants  of 
the  captives  of  Babylon,  scattered  in  every  corner  of  the 
earth — forming  a  part  of  every  nation,  yet  never  united  to 
any — still  hold  that  promise,  and  lift  up  their  eyes  towards 
the  little  land  which  could  not  hold  a  tithe  of  them,  yet 
which  mourns  for  them  and  waits  for  them  till  the  end  of 
time. 

I  will  set  up  one  Shepherd  over  them,  and  he  shall  feed  them, 
even  my  servant  David  ;  he  shall  feed  them,  and  he  shall  be  their 
shepherd. 

And  I  the  Lord  will  be  their  God,  and  my  servant  David  a  prince 
among  them  :  I  the  Lord  have  spoken  it. 

David's  house  was  ending  in  humiliation  and  woe,  no 
prince  of  that  race  ever  again  to  occupy  the  fallen  throne, 
every  branch  of  the  royal  line  in  captivity  or  extinguished 
altogether.  But  Ezekiel,  though  his  mission  was  more 
sombre  and  his  methods  less  clear  than  that  of  his  brother 
prophets,  was  yet  not  left  without  his  share  in  the  wonderful 
message  :  the  ideal  King,  the  Hope  of  the  whole  earth,  the 
God -sent,  the  Anointed  from  heaven,  stands  out  for  a 
moment  clear  amid  all  the  terrible  visions  and  smoke  of 
destruction.      "  I  will  raise  up  for  them  a  plant  of  renown." 

These  proclamations  of  comfort  and  hope  are,  however, 
far  less  characteristic  of  the  prophet  than  the  strange  and 
weird  vision  that  follows  them,  in  which  he  is  transported 
in  the  spirit  "  to  the  valley  which  is  full  of  bones."  It  would 
seem  to  have  been  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat,  the  deep  glen 
between  Mount  Moriah  and  the  Mount  of  Olives,  where  the 


CHAP.  HI  EZEKIEL  307 

dead  of  Judah  lay,  their  bleached  bones  strewn  over  those 
solemn  slopes  appealing  to  God.  There  flows  the  little 
Kedron  over  its  stones,  and  there  stand  the  solemn  old 
immemorial  trees  of  Gethsemanc,  most  sacred  of  all  holy- 
places.  But  when  Ezekiel  in  his  trance  saw  this  once 
peaceful  valley,  the  traces  of  the  carnage  were  still  all  visible, 
the  silent  ruins  of  Jerusalem  stood  desolate  under  the  pitying 
skies,  the  dead  who  had  fought  for  her,  who  had  been  flung 
from  her  ruined  ramparts,  or  killed  as  they  made  some 
desperate  sally,  lay  all  around  as  the  heaps  of  the  valiant  dead 
lie  round  the  standard  which  they  have  given  their  lives  to 
keep  out  of  the  enemies'  hands.  The  sun  had  beaten  and 
the  winds  had  blown  upon  those  sad  relics  of  the  slain  ;  the 
birds  of  prey  had  long  finished  their  awful  meal ;  and  wild 
beasts  ceased  to  rove  round  the  city  where  there  was  no  one 
strong  enough  to  resist  them.  Dry  as  the  dust  into  which 
they  were  to  moulder  were  those  remains  of  the  bold  and 
strong,  as  the  mournful  prophet  gazed  upon  them  through 
that  mystic  air  of  vision  which  was  neither  of  the  night  nor 
of  the  day.  "  Son  of  man,  can  these  bones  live  ? "  "  O 
Lord  God,  thou  knowest,"  answered  the  powerless  voice  of 
humanity.  Then  came  the  wonderful  command,  "  O  ye 
dry  bones,  hear  the  word  of  the  Lord."  Nothing  could  be 
more  sublime  than  the  description  that  follows. 

I  prophesied  as  I  was  commanded  :  and  as  I  prophesied,  there  v/as 
a  noise,  and  behold  a  shaking,  and  the  bones  came  together,  bone  to 
his  bone. 

And  when  I  beheld,  lo,  the  sinews  and  the  flesh  came  up  upon  them, 
and  the  skin  covered  them  above  :  but  there  was  no  breath  in  them. 

Then  said  he  unto  me.  Prophesy  unto  the  wind,  prophesy,  son  of 
man,  and  say  unto  the  wind,  Thus  saith  the  Lord  God, 

Come  from  the  four  winds,  O  breath. 

And  breathe  upon  these  slain  that  they  may  live. 

So  I  prophesied  as  he  commanded  me,  and  the  breath  came  into 
them,  and  they  lived,  and  stood  up  upon  their  feet,  an  exceeding  great 
army. 

"  These  bones  are  the  whole  house  of  Israel,"  dry, 
withered,  worn  by  sun  and  rain,  ravaged  by  the  vultures 
\K\\(\  the  hyenas,  the   bones  and    mournful  relics  of  a  once 


THE  PROPHETS 


living  nation  ;  yet — "  saith  the  Lord  God,  Behold,  O  my 
people,  I  will  open  your  graves,  and  cause  you  to  come  out 
from  your  graves,  and  bring  you  into  the  land  of  Israel." 
With  what  a  throb  of  strange  emotion  must  all  those 
troubled  people  have  listened,  remembering,  how  well !  that 
valley  under  the  now  ruined  walls  :  realising,  how  bitterly  ! 
the  condition  of  the  unburied  dead,  their  brethren,  their 
sons  :  and  held  their  breath  to  hear  of  that  solemn  rising, 
which  was  a  type  of  their  own  rise  as  a  nation,  as  well  as, 
no  doubt,  to  many  an  awakened  heart,  of  another  dimly 
promised,  little  understood,  yet  faintly  apprehended  rising 
that  was  to  come  ! 

It  will  be  seen  that  in  all  this  it  is  never  the  individual 
but  the  race  and  nation  which  is  referred  to.  The  twelve 
tribes  of  Israel  have  their  symbolical  place  even  in  the 
heavenly  land  as  conceived  by  every  Jew  :  yet  the  organ- 
isation of  a  nation  save  in  symbol  cannot  be  immortal. 
Therefore  it  is  the  restoration  of  human  fact  which  is  the 
prospect  held  out  to  them,  and  the  continuance  of  human 
and  historical  life.  Few  of  the  individuals  who  stood  round 
the  prophet  to  listen,  or  sat  before  him,  silent,  awaiting  his 
message,  could  ever  hope  to  see  that  restoration.  The 
prophet  himself  did  not  live  to  see  it.  With  him  and  with 
them  as  individuals,  God  had  His  own  methods  as  He  has 
now  and  always.  But  to  Israel  and  Judah  the  only 
promise  possible  was  that  of  renewed  and  continued 
national  life. 

And  was  it  a  glorious  dream  of  ecstatic  patriotism  and 
faith,  touched  with  the  glamour  of  an  inspiration  which 
was  all  symbolical,  allegorical,  visionary,  the  ethereal 
atmosphere  of  a  splendour  that  never  was  on  sea  or  shore, 
that  produced  that  apocalypse  with  which  the  troubled  life 
and  vision  of  Ezekiel  came  to  an  end  ?  The  new  Jerusalem, 
the  new  temple,  far  greater  and  more  glorious  than  that  of 
Solomon,  which  the  angel  measured  as  did  he  whom  St. 
John  in  Patmos,  six  hundred  years  later,  beheld  fulfilling 
the  same  office,  rose  before  the  prophet's  eyes,  shining  upon 
the  familiar  hills.      To  John  it  was  a  new  Jerusalem  descend- 


CHAP.  Ill  EZEKIEL  309 

ing  glorious  from  the  skies  like  a  bride  adorned  for  her 
husband.  But  in  Ezekiel's  wild,  yet  strangely  regular  and, 
as  wc  might  say,  architecturally  scientific  vision,  the  solid  walls 
are  founded  on  the  very  soil,  and  built  in  the  very  fashion, 
only  more  extended  and  more  splendid,  than  that  of  old. 
That  there  might  be  in  the  extraordinary  details  of  this 
vision  a  certain  guidance  for  the  restoration  to  come,  a 
glorified  memory  of  what  had  been,  a  secure  storing  away, 
as  in  the  most  sacred  place,  of  those  lines  of  construction 
which  were  to  guide  the  future — upon  which  the  prophet 
with  the  cadence  and  music  of  his  own  and  other  prophecies 
of  the  after- glory  in  his  ears,  and  a  dazzling  sense  of 
splendour  to  come  irradiating  all  before  him,  looked  forth 
with  the  assurance  of  a  heavenly  triumph — we  may  well 
be  allowed  to  imagine.  These  promises  were  to  be  fulfilled 
but  temporarily  according  to  the  immediate  sense  put  upon 
them.  Far  more  glorious,  far  more  Divine,  was  to  be  the 
tragic  triumph,  the  everlasting  dominion  over  the  heart  of 
man,  of  the  holy  city,  the  scene  of  our  Lord's  life  and  death. 
But  by  the  rivers  of  Babylon  at  that  dread  moment  the 
human  heart  had  had  enough  of  tragedy.  Isaiah  himself 
could  but  vaguely  foresee  that  wonderful  picture  which  he 
made,  "  searching  what  and  what  manner  of  things  the 
spirit  that  was  in  him  did  prophesy,"  strangely  revealing  in 
the  midst  of  those  mists  of  glory  the  countenance  marred  more 
than  that  of  any  man  of  which  he  has  left  so  affecting  a 
portrait.  What  they  needed  now  was  the  assurance  of  re- 
storation and  blessing  and  joy. 

Nor  was  that  assurance  vain  even  in  fact.  The  return 
of  the  Jews  from  captivity  nearly  seventy  years  after,  was 
such  an  event  as  is  unparalleled  in  history.  The  strenuous 
devotion  of  men  born  in  exile  to  that  ever -longed -for, 
never-forgotten  city,  and  the  strange  impression  made  on 
the  minds  of  the  conquerors,  by  what  means  we  are  left 
uninformed,  which  made  that  return  possible,  forms  an 
occurrence  unique  in  the  world,  bearing  no  analogy  to  any 
other  ever  known.  Nothing  could  have  seemed  less  possible, 
nothing   ever   was    more    true.      It    was   wonder   enough    to 


3IO  THE  PROPHETS 


fill  the  dark  horizon  of  the  captives  with  exultation  :  and  it 
was  once  more  the  opportunity  of  the  race  to  claim  and 
merit  every  ancient  promise  of  blessing ;  an  opportunity 
not  taken,  as  we  know,  but  which  to  the  prisoners  in  Babylon 
it  would  at  that  moment  seem  impossible  that  their  progeny, 
taught  by  experience  so  awful,  could  reject. 

And  with  this  assurance  the  prophecies  close.  It  was 
all  literal  to  the  poet  and  teacher  whose  every  lesson  had 
been  pointed  by  sight  and  sound,  who  had  scratched  the 
ruined  Jerusalem  on  his  tragic  tile,  and  who  now  drew  his 
lines  unchangeable  in  solid  substance  of  stone  and  wood 
upon  the  mist  of  that  future  which  was  made  all  glorious 
by  the  promises  of  God.  At  such  an  ebb  of  national  history 
when  all  seemed  over  and  the  eclipse  of  their  nation  and 
city  was  to  every  mortal  vision  a  catastrophe  without  hope, 
there  must  have  been  something  in  those  measurements 
and  details,  the  chambers  for  priests  unborn,  the  great 
splendid  courts  and  galleries  for  a  worship  extinguished 
and  a  people  scattered  to  the  ends  of  the  earth — something 
in  the  mingled  impossibility  yet  certainty,  that  dazzle  of  the 
contradictory  which  is  in  all  human  affairs  but  in  none  so 
much  as  in  the  history  of  the  Jews — which  uplifted  the 
hearts  of  the  captives  as  nothing  else  on  earth  could  do. 

I  may  note  one  local  detail  of  Ezekiel's  prolonged  and 
realistic  vision  which  refers  to  "  the  eastern  gate  of  the 
sanctuary,"  occupying,  it  may  be  presumed,  the  place  of  that 
which  is  now  called  the  Golden  Gate,  a  spot  which  has 
always  powerfully  affected  my  own  imagination.  It  is 
almost  opposite  now  to  that  garden  of  Gethsemane  in  which 
our  Lord  reached  one  of  the  most  bitter  depths  of  His 
anguish,  so  that  had  He  entered  the  sacred  precincts  from 
his  favourite  place  of  retirement,  as,  no  doubt.  He  often  did, 
it  would  have  been  by  that  door.  It  is  the  gate  which 
Moslem  tradition  points  out  as  the  one  by  which  Messiah 
when  He  comes  in  triumph,  treading  down  the  Crescent  and 
all  its  cruel  supremacy,  will  enter,  and  which  accordingly, 
with  a  precaution  full  of  that  strange  childishness  which 
mingles  with  the  subtilty  of  the   East,   they  have  built  up 


1  in.  1.'  u.i  I  -.  I. A  1 1. 


CHAP.  Ill  EZEKIEL  313 

by  way  of  safeguard.      Ezekiel  was  led  to  this  eastern  gate, 
and  found  that  it  was  closed. 

Then  said  the  Lord  unto  me,  This  gate  shall  be  shut,  it  shall  not 
be  opened,  and  no  man  shall  enter  in  by  it ;  because  the  Lord,  the  God 
of  Israel,  hath  entered  in  by  it,  therefore  it  shall  be  shut. 

It  is  for  the  prince  ;  the  prince,  he  shall  sit  in  it  to  eat  bread  before 
the  Lord ;  he  shall  enter  by  the  way  of  the  porch  of  that  gate,  and 
shall  go  out  by  the  way  of  the  same. 

It  is  scarcely  possible  to  doubt  that  this  passage  is  the 
origin  of  the  Mohammedan  tradition  :  and  it  adds  a  strong 
additional  interest  to  the  always  significant  suggestion  of 
an  entrance  thus  hermetically  closed  :  by  which  the  Prince 
of  princes  has  gone  in,  by  which  it  may  be  He  came  forth 
to  His  agony  in  the  garden,  and  by  which,  in  the  wonders 
and  mysteries  of  a  future  of  which  we  know  so  little,  He 
may  yet  return. 

And  here  ends  the  first  portion  of  the  history  of  Jeru- 
salem, the  little  city  on  the  hillside,  like  so  many  others  of 
the  little  cities  which  still  cover  the  hills  of  Palestine.  The 
small  tough  fortress  that  David  took  has  grown  into  a 
beautiful  and  splendid  metropolis  under  our  eyes — not  vast 
like  Babylon,  or  Nineveh,  those  ancient  centres  of  the 
world — but  with  a  splendour  of  the  heart,  the  cradle  of 
music,  of  poetry  and  song ;  with  palace  and  temple,  not 
perhaps  so  beautiful  as  those  of  Greece  that  were  yet  to  be, 
but  pervaded  by  a  meaning  far  more  beautiful,  the  presence 
of  a  God  one  and  supreme,  the  spirit  of  a  law  unique  in  its 
tenderness  as  in  its  justice.  We  have  .seen  this  city  ri.sc 
and  fall  again  with  all  the  vicissitudes  of  human  contrariety 
and  changeableness  and  the  caprices  of  a  specially  per- 
verse and  individual  race.  It  has  poured  forth  such  pagans 
of  triumph  and  wailings  of  lamentation  as  never  were 
uttered  from  earth  to  heaven  :  and  now  it  has  fallen,  fallen 
from  its  high  state — destroyed  with  a  completeness  that 
never  overtook  either  liabylon  or  Nineveh,  those  cities  now 
altogether  wiped  out  from  human  habitation  and  ken — 
smoking  in  utter  ruin,  all  that  was  capable  in  it  gone,  a  few 
beggars  and  skilless  poor  left  to  creep  about  the  deserted  streets, 


314  THE  PROPHETS 


and  seek  a  pitiful  maintenance  among  the  foundations  of 
the  burnt  granaries  and  the  fruits  of  gardens  trampled  down. 
And  yet  over  this  desolate  place  the  air  thrills  with  promises 
of  greatness  to  come,  and  far  away  in  Chaldea  the  prophet 
measures  his  mystic  chambers  and  builds  with  incisive  lines 
that  seem  to  cut  the  parchment,  the  walls  and  towers  of 
another  temple  more  great  than  Solomon's.  Could  it  ever 
be  that  these  promises  should  be  fulfilled  and  that  great 
sanctuar)^  once  more  stand  dazzling  under  the  Eastern  sun  ? 


PART    III 

THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION 


CHAPTER    I 

ZERUBBABEL EZRA 

The  captivity  lasted,  as  Jeremiah  had  prophesied,  nearly 
seventy  years,  during  which  time  the  Jewish  captives  had 
not  by  any  means  continued  to  sit  and  weep  by  the  waters 
of  Babylon  as  in  the  first  days.  The  generation  which 
was  carried  captive  died  in  great  measure  and  passed  away, 
though  there  is  still  mention  of  some,  very  old  men  as  they 
must  have  been,  who  had  seen  the  glory  of  the  first  house, 
yet  who  were  still  able  for  the  toilsome  journey  back  again 
from  Babylon  to  Jerusalem.  In  the  intervening  interval 
the  Jews,  here  first  called  by  that  name,  as  they  emerge 
from  the  obscurity  into  which  they  had  fallen — had  found 
their  way,  in  some  cases,  into  important  offices  in  the  govern- 
ment and  court,  and  in  many  others  had  grown  rich  and 
prospered  in  the  exercise  of  those  inalienable  gifts  which 
still,  more  than  two  thousand  years  later,  make  them  prosper 
and  grow  rich  wherever  their  wandering  footsteps  are  stayed 
— a  faculty  which  has  procured  them  much  odium  every- 
where, especially  when  attained  by  that  habit  of  "  taking 
pledges "  and  exacting  usury  which  had  been  one  of  their 
special  sins  from  the  beginning  of  their  career. 

The  apocryphal  writings,  without  any  claim  to  be 
received  into  the  sacred  canon,  are  full  of  valuable  details 
of  Jewish  life  and  history,  and  give  us  much  information 
concerning  the  settlement  of  the  little  nation  in  Baby- 
lon, and  the  many  rich  and  prosperous  families  living 
such  a  peaceful  life  among  their  captors  as  strangers  may 


3l8  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  part  hi 

enjoy  who  have  no  special  patriotic  interest  in  the  adventures 
and  misadventures  of  the  country  in  which  they  have  their 
habitation,  unconcerned  whether  it  is  a  great  Nebuchadnezzar 
or  a  feeble  Belshazzar  who  occupies  the  throne.  Such 
strangers  unaffected  by  the  vicissitudes  of  local  feeling  or 
fortune  may  thrive  and  prosper  whatever  happens  in  the 
alien  land  where  they  have  full  freedom  of  movement  and 
occupation.  It  is,  indeed,  the  same  manner  of  life  which 
that  wonderful  race  has  continued  to  live  throughout  the 
whole  civilised  world. 

And  it  was  not  only  the  least  distinguished  of  the  Jews 
who  contented  themselves  with  this  fate.  Daniel  the  princely 
boy  "  of  the  king's  seed,"  well-favoured  and  well-educated 
and  full  of  that  charm  which  seems  to  have  dwelt  with  the 
house  of  David  even  in  its  downfall,  notwithstanding  his 
great  genius,  and  wonderful  adventures,  and  the  mystic 
visions,  more  strange  even  than  those  of  Ezekiel,  which  were 
vouchsafed  to  him,  never  seems  to  have  struggled  against 
his  circumstances,  or  attempted  any  change.  He  stands 
a  mystic  yet  most  real  figure  full  of  vigour  and  courage 
in  the  very  court  and  palace  of  the  conqueror,  never  swerv- 
ing from  his  faith,  always  respected,  full  of  honour  and  of 
honours.  During  most  of  his  life  he  occupied  the  highest 
positions,  one  of  the  chief  men  of  the  kingdom  :  but  he 
was  obedient  to  the  doom  of  his  people,  accepting  all  its 
humiliations  and  never  attempting  to  throw  off  that  yoke 
which  had  been  imposed  upon  himself  individually  in  his 
childhood.  Mordecai  or  Mordocheus,  the  Jew,  the  foster- 
father  of  Esther,  though  not  so  great,  was  a  person  about 
the  court,  sitting  in  the  king's  gate,  and  sufficiently  well 
known  to  incur  the  jealous  hatred  of  the  vizier  Haman. 
But  it  is  unnecessary  to  multiply  examples.  The  calm 
settlement  of  the  majority  of  the  exiles,  combined  with 
their  never  -  failing  enthusiasm  for  Jerusalem  and  their 
ancient  home,  is  as  remarkable  as  any  other  feature  in 
their  history.  Daniel  prayed  with  his  face  towards 
Jerusalem  bewailing  the  sins  which  had  banished  his 
race  from  that  beloved   city,  as  still  the  far-off  descendants 


CHAP.  I  ZERUBBABEL — EZRA  319 

of  that  wonderful  people,  coming  on  pilgrimages  from  all 
the  ends  of  the  earth,  wail  and  pray  with  their  heads  against 
the  ancient  wall,  older  than  all  revolutions,  which  banks  up 
the  slope  of  Moriah,  enclosing  the  area  where  once  the 
Temple  stood,  and  where  now  they  are  not  permitted  to 
set  foot.  Strange  constancy  of  faith,  strange  inability  of 
action !  In  Babylon  they  fondly  computed  the  hours  of 
the  day  by  the  old  divisions,  speaking  of  "  the  time  of  the 
evening  oblation,"  though  neither  oblation  nor  sacrifice  existed. 
But  yet  still  lived  on  and  throve  and  prospered,  and  fulfilled 
great  offices  of  trust  and  government  in  the  strange  land  : 
and  neither  then  nor  at  the  moment  when  the  national 
penance  was  accomplished  and  return  was  possible,  attempted 
to  go  back.  Almost  as  extraordinary  as  the  determination  of 
the  race  to  restore  their  holy  places  and  keep  their  distinct 
nationality,  is  their  acceptance  everywhere  of  the  exile  which 
has  become  their  general  fate.  They  are  now  the  richest 
and  one  of  the  most  numerous  of  races.  Could  they  be 
moved  by  the  Crusaders'  spirit  what  an  astonishing  inter- 
vention in  the  Eastern  question  might  be  made  by  an  army 
of  Jews,  countless,  interminable,  from  all  the  countries  under 
heaven,  with  all  the  capitalists  of  Europe  at  their  back  ! 
How  soon  might  little  Palestine,  the  beloved  birthplace 
which  would  not  contain  one  thousandth  part  of  them, 
fall  into  their  hands !  And  something  still  of  the  old 
enthusiasm,  the  old  heroism,  the  desperate  valour  of  their 
ancestors,  must  surely  remain  among  them.  What  is  it, 
stronger  than  ambition,  more  powerful  than  wealth,  that 
holds  them  back  ? 

The  time  came,  however,  when  so  far  as  regarded  the 
ancient  Jews  in  Babylon  this  spell  was  broken.  The  fall  of 
the  great  empire  which  had  been  foretold  by  their  prophets, 
the  opening  of  the  great  gates,  the  two-leaved  gates,  the  gates 
of  the  rivers,  let  in  the  Mede  into  the  careless  city  lost  in 
banqueting  and  mirth,  and  Cyrus  strong  and  great  took 
the  place  of  Bel.shazzar.  What  movement  then  took  place 
among  the  Jews,  or  how  was  the  attention  of  the  conqueror 
attracted  to  them  ?     liy  what  incident  or  scries  of  incidents 


320  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  part  in 

was  a  special  interest  aroused  in  the  mind  of  Cyrus  for  these 
exiles  ?  No  historical  problem  could  be  more  interesting  to 
solve  than  this,  but  there  is  absolutely  no  information  on  the 
subject.  "  The  Lord  stirred  up  the  spirit  of  Cyrus  king  of 
Persia":  that  is  all:  and  we  know  no  more.  There  were 
many  subject  races  in  his  new  kingdom,  relics  of  Nebuchad- 
nezzar's conquests,  but  it  was  not  the  skilful  Phoenicians, 
masters  of  all  the  arts,  nor  the  shipmen  and  merchants  of 
the  seaports,  which  are  always  so  valuable  to  an  inland 
empire,  whom  Cyrus  restored.  None  of  these,  indeed,  had 
been  swept  into  such  complete  destruction  as  that  which 
had  overwhelmed  Jerusalem. 

But  it  is  vain  to  seek  for  information  as  to  the  reasons  which 
directed  the  eyes  of  the  new  emperor  towards  the  scattered 
people,  who  had  been,  more  than  any  other,  rooted  out  and 
torn  away  from  their  country.  They  had  not  even  any  remark- 
able leader  to  attract  his  attention,  for  their  great  men  were 
old  and  secluded  from  the  occupations  and  influences  of  life. 
Was  it  the  aged  Daniel  from  his  retirement  who  came  forth, 
with  perhaps  a  roll  of  old  parchment  carried  after  him  in  its 
case,  to  show  the  monarch  his  own  very  name  in  the  fading 
lines  a  century  and  a  half  old  ?  "  Cyrus,  my  shepherd,"  of 
whom  God  said  "  I  guided  thee  though  thou  hast  not  known 
me."  In  the  criticism  of  recent  times  the  mere  fact  that 
Cyrus  is  named  is  evidence  enough  that  the  writer  cannot 
have  been  Isaiah  but  another  man,  the  contemporary  of  the 
great  conqueror :  but  that  would  be  an  exceedingly  poor 
argument  if  Daniel  or  some  other  influential  Jew  actually 
possessed  the  roll  of  Isaiah's  prophecy  in  which  these  words 
appeared.  It  is,  we  believe,  a  tradition  that  this  was  the 
way  in  which  the  attention  of  Cyrus  was  secured,  and  that 
in  so  effectual  a  manner,  that  he  not  only  permitted  but  sent 
the  Jews,  or  at  least  such  portion  of  them  as  were  ready  to 
shake  themselves  loose  of  all  their  surroundings,  and  give  up 
the  comforts  they  had  gathered  about  them  and  the  protec- 
tion and  established  security  of  the  great  empire  for  that 
visionary  journey  full  of  trouble  and  fatigue,  to  the  Jerusalem 
which  very  few  could  remember.      The  act  of  Cyrus  was  all 


CHAP.  I  ZERUBBABEL—EZRA  321 

the  more  extraordinary,  that  his  decree  was  accompanied 
by  the  gift  of  the  valuable  sacred  vessels,  "  thirty  chargers 
of  gold,  a  thousand  chargers  of  silver,  thirty  basons  of  gold, 
silver  basons  of  a  second  sort  four  hundred  and  ten,"  and 
much  more,  a  small  treasure  as  well  as  trophy  of  past  con- 
quests. It  might,  indeed,  have  had  a  certain  political  effect 
as  humiliating  the  already  crushed  Babylonians,  but  few  kings 
are  ready  to  part  with  bullion  even  on  such  an  argument. 

This  decree,  so  wonderful  and  beyond  all  hope,  must  have 
thrown  an  extraordinary  excitement  through  all  the  scattered 
colonies  of  the  Jews.  A  return  from  captivity  sounds  like 
something  joyful  and  triumphant.  The  people  had  sown  in 
tears,  but  would  return  joyful  carrying  their  sheaves  with 
them.  Such  is  the  aspect  in  which  it  appears  to  us  ;  but 
that  could  scarcely  be  the  view  which  presented  itself  to  the 
devoted  chiefs  and  priests  who  conducted  the  expedition,  a 
venture  almost  as  great  as  that  of  the  first  expedition  from 
Egypt  to  Canaan.  It  is  difficult  to  form  from  our  own 
experience  any  idea  of  what  such  an  undertaking  meant. 
No  doubt  the  Jewish  children  had  been  brought  up  to  call 
the  distant  Jerusalem  fondly  by  the  name  of  "  home,"  to  hear 
continual  accounts  of  its  glory,  fondly  exaggerated  in  the 
recollection  of  the  fathers  and  mothers  who  had  passed  away 
with  that  name  upon  their  lips.  So  do  our  Canadian  or 
Australian  grandchildren  think  of  the  Imperial  little  island 
lying  far  away  in  the  dimness  of  the  seas  ;  but  they  come 
and  go  with  ease  and  without  danger  to  a  civilisation  more 
advanced  than  their  own,  to  a  perfectly  secure  and  highly 
organised  life — although  we  have  little  doubt  with  some 
disenchantment  and  sense  of  having  fallen  from  the  ideal  to 
the  real,  when  they  accomplish  that  pilgrimage.  But  the 
Jewish  captives  had  before  them  a  city  in  ruins,  a  country 
which  had  fallen  out  of  cultivation,  almost  into  the  condition 
of  a  desert,  full,  no  doubt,  of  predatory  nomads,  and  with 
vexatious  neighbours  on  every  side,  hostile  little  peoples 
looking  out  for  every  occasion  of  offence.  That  desolate 
and  devastated  land  was  home  to  them  only  in  name.  And 
between   them  and   it,  lay  one  of  those  long  journeys  of  the 

Y 


322  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  part  hi 

ancient  world,  journeys  almost  inconceivable  to  us,  when  the 
monotonous  jog  of  the  camel  or  tramp  of  the  ass  goes  on  for 
long  weeks,  till  the  lines  of  the  endless  road  whirl  round  the 
passenger,  in  feverish  endings  and  diminishings  of  long  per- 
spective, and  all  life  becomes  a  confused  and  weary  move- 
ment which  seems  as  if  it  never  could  reach  any  definite  end. 
That  some  forty-two  thousand  of  the  captives  (as  stated 
by  Ezra :  the  summing  of  the  items  does  not  come  to 
this,  but  to  somewhere  about  thirty  thousand  ;  it  is  very 
possible,  however,  that  the  children  of  the  many  families 
made  up  the  larger  number)  had  the  courage  to  set  out,  and 
to  take  upon  themselves  the  task  of  building  up  that  great 
Temple  which  had  occupied  Solomon  in  its  first  construction 
for  years,  and  so  many  other  kings  in  constant  reparation 
and  restoration — is  a  proof  of  the  great  vitality  and  earnest- 
ness of  the  national  life  among  them.  The  very  old  and  the 
very  young  were  in  the  vast  party  which  moved  slowly  off 
from  Babylon,  and  from  all  the  villages  and  cities  in 
which  they  dwelt,  the  entire  community  of  their  country- 
men, no  doubt,  coming  forth  to  see  them  start,  watching 
with  eyes,  half  wistful,  half  ashamed,  the  heroic  remnant 
which  was  giving  up  everything  for  home.  Many  must 
have  thus  looked  on  who  had  not  the  courage  to  go 
with  them,  or  who  were  so  bound  with  the  engagements 
of  life,  the  cares  of  wealth,  or  those  of  poverty,  as  to  be 
unable  to  join  the  train.  Many,  no  doubt,  had  compounded 
for  their  want  of  energy  by  buying  back  captives  from  their 
masters,  as  is  afterwards  stated,  and  by  undertaking  the 
expenses  of  the  journey  for  their  poorer  countrymen.  The 
prince  Zerubbabel  and  the  high  priest  Jeshua  have  left  little 
sign  of  their  personality  upon  the  record  :  perhaps  because 
they  did  not  possess  the  gift  of  expression  which  such  an 
incisive  writer  as  the  scribe  Ezra  exercised  with  so  much 
effect.  They  are  voiceless,  devoting  themselves  as  the 
pioneers  of  the  nation,  saying  never  a  word,  yet  not  less 
important  in  the  story,  leading  the  forlorn  hope  not  only  of 
Judah  but  of  Israel.  They  had  their  little  band  of  priests 
about  them,  thirty-six  members  of  well-known   families,  and 


CHAP.  I  ZERUBBABEL—EZRA  325 

a  number  more  who  could  not  prove  their  lineage,  a  small 
contingent  of  Levites  and  Ncthinims,  servants  of  the  Temple, 
and  a  larger  number  of  musicians,  "  children  of  Asaph,"  besides 
the  laymen  rich  and  poor  who  formed  the  main  body.  "  Two 
hundred  singing  men  and  women  "  are  mentioned  among  the 
servants,  in  addition  to  these  sacred  singers  of  Asaph's  race, 
of  whom  there  were  a  hundred  and  twenty-eight — so  that 
the  great  caravans  must  have  had  a  sufficient  choir  of  per- 
formers, for  those  songs  with  which  they  beguiled  the  way. 

By  the  waters  of  Chebar  where  Ezekiel  lived  and  sighed 
for  Jerusalem,  where  the  captives  sat  under  the  willows — 
and  from  many  another  colony  beside,  knot  after  knot  of 
people  would  take  their  way,  a  camel  conveying  the  baggage, 
perhaps  another  camel  with  the  women  and  children,  an 
ass  for  the  servant,  a  horse  for  the  man,  riding  at  the  head  of 
the  party.  Their  way  lay  chiefly  through  the  vast  empire 
all  indeed  under  the  Babylonian  sway,  enjoined  by  the  royal 
letters  to  aid  and  afford  supplies  ;  but  where  perhaps, 
in  the  outlying  regions,  it  would  scarcely  be  yet  known  that 
Babylon  had  fallen,  that  the  kingdom  of  the  Medes  and 
Persians  had  begun,  and  that  the  king  was  Cyrus  and 
not  Belshazzar.  And  among  so  many  different  satrapies 
and  peoples  there  must  have  been  endless  risks  of  encounter 
with  the  lawless  on  the  way,  in  distant  regions  out  of  the 
reach  of  authority,  and  among  the  predatory  bands  roving 
about  the  plains  such  as  held  the  travelling  caravans  in 
terror.  Arabs  and  Bedouins  as  yet  were  not,  but  there  were, 
no  doubt,  relics  of  Ammon  and  Moab,  who  would  look  on 
with  angry  wonder  as  they  approached,  besides  the  half- 
savage  aborigines  to  whom  they  were  only  a  succession 
of  huge  and  straggling  parties  very  open  to  robbing.  They 
took  four  and  a  half  months  to  the  journey  which  seems  a 
long  time  even  with  their  primitive  methods  :  but  there  must 
have  been  endless  delays  incident  to  such  a  crowd,  and  diffi- 
culties in  the  supply  of  food,  besides  the  opposition  of  here 
and  there  an  irate  commune  to  their  passage,  the  enmity 
which  the  very  friendship  of  one  town  would  raise  in  another, 
as  well  as  the  constant  risk  of  sickness  among  the  family 


326  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  part  ill 

groups,  those  swift  epidemics  of  the  East  smiting  down  the 
travellers.  And  when  they  arrived  on  the  northern  heights 
from  which  they  could  first  see  Jerusalem,  that  point  where 
the  mailed  warriors  of  the  Middle  Ages  shouted  and  wept  in 
the  transport  of  their  end  attained,  what  cries,  what  wailings, 
must  have  burst  from  the  expectant  crowd  !  That  heap  of 
ruins  on  the  two  hills,  calm  Olivet  standing  like  a  sentinel 
over  them,  the  valley  of  the  Tyropceon  cutting  like  the  jagged 
stroke  of  an  axe  between  the  upper  and  the  lower  city,  the 
low  lines  of  humble  roofs  hid  among  the  heaps  of  destruction, 
what  a  sight  to  meet  the  eyes  of  the  exiles  !  Was  this  the 
Mount  Zion  which  was  the  joy  of  the  whole  earth,  compactly 
built,  beautiful  for  situation,  the  city  of  the  great  King  ? 

It  would  appear  that  after  the  perils  and  fatigue  of 
their  journey  a  period  of  rest  ensued.  The  people  "dwelt  in 
their  cities,"  each  forlorn  household  returning  to  where  its 
settlement  was,  the  home  of  its  fathers  ;  where  the  young 
Assyrians,  brought  up  among  the  luxuries  of  Babylon,  must 
have  learnt  to  put  up  with  the  homely  rock-hewn  chambers 
of  Bethlehem,  the  huts  of  Anathoth,  the  ruined  dwellings  of 
Bethel  and  Michmash,  there  being  many  families  from  the 
ten  tribes  in  the  train,  as  well  as  those  of  Judah  and  Ben- 
jamin. They  dispersed  "  every  one  to  his  city,"  to  form 
some  sort  of  economy  of  possible  life  amid  those  unknown 
surroundings  with  which  their  acquaintance  was  only  tradi- 
tionary :  while  Zerubbabel  and  Jeshua  would,  no  doubt,  push 
their  way  on  to  the  ruins  of  Jerusalem  which  offered  them 
so  sad  a  welcome,  standing  up  roofless  and  desolate  under 
the  blazing  Eastern  skies. 

How  long  a  time  was  allowed  for  these  preliminaries 
we  are  not  informed,  but  it  was  in  October,  the  seventh 
month  of  the  Jewish  year,  that  the  people  were  called 
together  to  Jerusalem  for  the  first  act  of  restoration. 
In  the  meantime  the  elementary  difficulties  of  the  posi- 
tion had  been  overcome,  so  far,  at  least,  that  the  charred 
relics  of  the  Temple  had  been  partially  cleared  away, 
and  the  sites  of  the  holy  places  identified,  so  that  it  was 
possible   to   restore   the   altar  for   the    daily  sacrifices   in    its 


CHAi'.  I  ZERUBBABEL—EZh'A  327 

place  in  the  porch  of  the  ruined  building :  "  for  fear  was 
upon  them  because  of  the  people  of  these  countries,"  says 
the  record.  Probably  they  were  anxious  not  only  to  be  able 
to  resume  the  characteristic  rites  of  sacrifice  which  the  exist- 
ing generation  had  never  seen,  but  also  to  make  it  instantly 
plain  to  the  surrounding  and  not  friendly  people  that  their 
object  was  a  religious  one,  and  not  an  endeavour  to  found  a 
new  kingdom  or  raise  any  standard  of  rebellion  against  the 
great  central  power  at  Babylon  which  all  obeyed  or  professed 
to  obey.  "  They  set  the  altar  upon  his  bases,"  building  up 
the  foundations  out  of  the  fallen  stones,  the  material  that  lay 
ready  to  their  hand,  perhaps  laying  upon  them  the  sheets  of 
ancient  brass  torn  from  their  place,  injured  and  useless, 
which  had  lain  in  some  corner  of  the  royal  chapel  of  Nebu- 
chadnezzar and  his  sons,  and  had  been  delivered  back  again 
to  the  captives  along  with  so  many  other  more  valuable  things. 
It  is  a  picturesque  detail  that  the  people  kept  the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles  during  this  first  assembly.  It  must  have  simpli- 
fied matters  greatly  that  the  time  of  year  at  which  they 
were  called  was  that  of  this  feast,  for  it  is  evident  that  the 
booths  or  little  erections  of  green  branches  which  are  still 
built  everywhere  in  Palestine,  perched  high  upon  a  wall,  or 
supported  by  piles  as  summer  dwellings,  would  be  much 
more  wholesome,  as  well  as  pleasant,  than  any  kind  of 
encampment  among  the  ruins,  extensive  enough  to  have 
lodged  the  people  in  strength.  We  remember  to  have  been 
told  that  these  summer  tabernacles  were  not  only  for  coolness 
but  to  escape  the  scorpions  which  swarmed  among  the  ruins 
of  older  and  greater  buildings  surrounding  a  little  modern  town 
of  Palestine.  The  tabernacles  of  Jerusalem  in  that  blazing 
autumn  weather,  perched  high  over  the  broken  walls  and  heaps 
of  indiscriminate  ruin,  would,  no  doubt,  have  this  reason  too. 

From  that  time  forth  the  smoke  of  the  evening  and  the 
morning  sacrifice  began  to  rise  again  over  Moriah,  never  to 
be  wholly  extinguished  save  for  a  brief  interval,  until  the 
great  sacrifice,  of  which  these  rites  were  but  the  shadow,  had 
been  accomplished  there. 

It  was  not,  however,  till  the  second  year  that  Zerubbabel 


328  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  part  iii 

and  Jeshua  found  themselves  in  a  position  to  begin  the  re- 
building of  the  Temple.  They  had  not  only  to  clear  the 
site,  during  the  course  of  which  they  would,  no  doubt,  find 
much  valuable  material  in  those  stones  in  which,  as  sings  a 
poet  of  the  captivity,  God's  people  found  pleasure,  and  in 
the  very  dust  which  was  dear — but  to  provide  the  finer 
material  of  the  interior,  the  cedar  which  Solomon  had  pro- 
cured from  Tyre,  and  for  which  the  new  restorers  of  his 
Temple  made  a  bargain  similar  to  his,  exchanging  the  crops, 
which  must  have  been  abundant  since  they  became  thus  at 
once  an  article  of  barter,  for  the  precious  wood.  What  a 
stirring  once  more  in  those  dry  bones  !  Solomon's  founda- 
tions, no  doubt,  still  stood,  fast  in  the  rock,  as  some  portion 
of  them  do  now,  Cyclopean  blocks,  marked  with  the  sign  of 
their  Phoenician  builders  :  and  many  of  the  great  courses  of 
stone  must  have  withstood  the  axes  of  the  destroyer,  and 
offered  at  once  guidance  and  material  for  the  rebuilding  ; 
while  all  about  the  valleys  of  Hinnom  must  have  been 
heard  the  shoutings  and  strainings  of  the  workmen  who  had 
dragged  the  great  logs  across  the  plain  of  Sharon  and  by  all 
the  mountain  ways  towards  the  city.  The  Levites  were  ap- 
pointed to  the  charge  of  the  work,  and  as  soon  as  the  area 
was  cleared  and  the  masons,  no  doubt  also  supplied  by 
Tyre,  that  home  of  industry,  were  ready  to  begin,  a  great 
solemnity  was  held  once  more  upon  Moriah.  The  people 
flocked  again  from  their  villages,  the  consecrated  over- 
seers were  all  in  their  places,  the  builders  clustered  about 
the  great  foundation  stone.  Something  of  the  glory  of  old 
must  have  been  about  the  sacred  mount  where  "  the  priests 
in  their  apparel  with  trumpets,"  glowing  in  their  purple  and 
fine  linen,  the  bells  on  the  high  priest's  tunic  tinkling  as  he 
moved,  "  and  the  Levites,  the  sons  of  Asaph,  with  cymbals  " 
stood  all  around  :  and  once  more  the  song  of  consecration,  the 
song  of  David,  floated  forth  on  all  the  winds. 

Praise  ye  the  Lord. 

O  give  thanks  unto  the  Lord  ; 

For  he  is  good  : 

For  his  mercy  endureth  for  ever. 


CHAP.  I  ZERUBBABEL — EZRA  329 

And  all  the  people  shouted  with  a  great  shout,  when  the  foundation 
of  the  house  of  the  Lord  was  laid. 

But  many  of  the  priests  and  Levites,  and  chief  of  the  fathers,  who 
were  ancient  men,  that  had  seen  the  first  house,  when  the  foundation 
of  this  house  was  laid  before  their  eyes,  wept  with  a  loud  voice  ;  and 
many  shouted  aloud  for  joy  :  so  that  the  people  could  not  discern  the 
noise  of  the  shout  of  joy  from  the  noise  of  the  weeping  of  the  people  : 
for  the  people  shouted  with  a  loud  shout,  and  the  noise  was  heard 
afar  off. 

What  poets,  what  painters,  were  those  Hebrews !  how 
the  mass  of  ruin  suddenly  becomes  coherent,  with  a  great 
soul  in  it,  upon  the  mount  before  our  eyes,  and  the  old 
men  weep  for  all  the  strange  things  that  have  been  and  arc 
to  be,  and  the  young  rejoice  in  the  beginning  of  the  work, 
to  which  they  were  commissioned  by  the  great  God  who  had 
distinguished  their  race  through  all  the  years  of  human 
history,  and  the  great  king  magnanimous  and  powerful 
who  was  His  servant  though  he  knew  Him  not.  The  past 
and  the  future  crowded  upon  them  as  they  sang  and  shouted 
in  their  corner  of  little  Palestine.  Was  it  not  the  greatest 
act  taking  place  in  the  whole  world,  though  that  world,  like 
Cyrus,  knew  it  not  ? 

After  this  joyful  beginning  however,  the  work  was  soon 
brought  to  a  pause.  The  people  round  had  seen  the 
return  of  the  Jews  with  envious  and  evil  eyes.  "  The 
adversaries  of  Judah  and  Benjamin "  who  now  interfered, 
are  believed  to  have  been  the  inhabitants  of  Samaria,  their 
nearest  neighbours  and  in  a  sense  kinsmen,  a  mixed 
company  in  which  a  few  legitimate  remnants  of  the  ancient 
Israelites  had  so  mixed  themselves  amongst  the  successive 
waves  of  colonists  that  they  were  no  longer  to  be  identified 
as  of  one  nation  or  another — the  invaders  with  the  liberality 
of  heathenism  having  adopted  the  God  of  Israel  into  their 
Olympus,  willing  to  share  an  occasional  act  of  worship 
between  Him  and  Baal.  Their  jealousy  of  the  sudden 
invaders  who  had  thus  taken  possession  of  a  vacant  place 
in  which,  perhaps,  they  now  regretted  not  to  have  forestalled 
them,  was  mingled,  perhaps,  with  some  lingering  shame  in 
their  own  apostasy  and  desire  to  return  to  a  religion  which 


THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION 


now  seemed  a  passport  to  the  favour  of  kings.  "  Let  us 
build  with  you,"  was  what  they  said  :  "  for  we  seek  your 
God,  as  ye  do."  The  Jews  repulsed  these  deceitful  overtures 
with  indignation.  "  Ye  have  nothing  to  do  with  us,"  they 
replied  ;  "  we  ourselves  together  will  build  unto  the  Lord 
God  of  Israel,  as  king  Cyrus  the  king  of  Persia  hath 
commanded  us."  The  result  was  that  these  uneasy  neigh- 
bours delayed  the  building  by  many  devices,  keeping  up 
a  constant  course  of  disturbance  which  lasted  for  many 
years.  They  despatched  letters  to  Cyrus,  to  Ahasuerus  or 
Cambyses  his  son,  and  to  his  successor,  called  in  the 
text  Artaxerxes,  continuing  the  process  for  seventeen  or 
eighteen  years  until  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Darius. 
The  vexatious  character  of  this  opposition,  the  effect  it 
may  have  had  upon  the  supplies  from  Tyre,  and  the 
difficulties  it  would  throw  in  the  way  of  securing 
workmen  in  the  country  round,  from  among  those 
aborigines,  undisturbed  by  any  political  revolutions,  who 
still  supplied  Jerusalem  with  unskilled  labour  —  must 
have  been  very  harassing  to  the  Jews,  and  seriously 
retarded  the  work  which  for  the  moment  every  influence 
seems  to  have  combined  to  prevent.  The  character 
of  the  letters  to  the  distant  court  at  Babylon,  where  these 
hostile  neighbours  hired  counsellors  to  speak  for  them,  may 
be  perceived  from  the  extracts  which  are  given  in  the  text, 
addressed  to  Artaxerxes  : 

"  If  this  city  be  builded,  and  the  walls  set  up  again, 
then  will  they  not  pay  toll,  tribute,  and  custom,  and  so  thou 
shalt  endamage  the  revenue  of  the  kings : "  this  astute 
suggestion  brought  matters  to  a  pause.  Neither  from 
Cyrus  nor  his  son  could  any  decree  against  the  Jews  be 
obtained,  notwithstanding  the  counsellors  whom  their  enemies 
had  bribed  to  support  them.  But  the  Artaxerxes  of  the 
text  was  a  usurper,  probably  terrified  to  transgress  against 
precedent,  or  to  risk  any  portion  of  the  revenue.  "  Why 
should  the  king  come  to  hurt  ? "  he  says  in  his  reply.  He 
caused  a  search  to  be  made  in  the  archives  laid  up  in  his 
capital,  and  discovered   that  Jerusalem   had    been   an    inde- 


CHAP.  I  ZERUBBABEL — EZRA  331 

pendent  and  very  belligerent  little  kingdom,  with  which 
Nebuchadnezzar  had  much  trouble  before  he  finally  reduced 
it  to  ashes.  The  decree  of  Cyrus  in  its  favour  was  not 
in  that  ancient  record  office,  nor,  perhaps,  would  it  have 
had  much  influence  upon  the  man  who  had  seized  his 
throne.  Orders  were  accordingly  sent  to  stop  the  building, 
which  was  done  by  force,  the  Jews  in  Jerusalem  being  too 
few  and  unwarlike  to  stand  against  their  enemies. 

Many  disappointments  and  disenchantments,  during 
those  troubled  years,  must  have  come  to  the  enthusiastic 
band  which  had  laid  with  such  shouts  of  joy  and  weeping 
the  foundation  of  the  house  of  the  Lord.  No  doubt  they 
had  thought  when  they  made  the  great  renunciation  of 
their  comforts  and  possessions  and  secure  life  at  Babylon, 
that  the  work  to  which  they  devoted  themselves  would,  at 
least,  go  on  to  a  noble  completion,  and  the  praises  of  God 
resound  in  their  beautiful  Temple  to  echo  over  all  the  world. 
Instead  of  this  they  found  themselves  compelled  to  share 
in  a  specially  bitter  way  the  common  lot  of  humanity, 
deceived  in  their  warmest  hopes,  and  instead  of  miraculous 
help  and  reward,  had  to  learn  to  serve  God  for  nought,  as  it  is 
indeed  the  highest  privilege  of  his  servants  to  do.  The  work, 
instead  of  progressing  steadily  from  day  to  day,  had  to  be 
carried  on  as  they  could,  a  little  now,  a  little  then,  as  the 
exigencies  of  a  life  lived  among  enemies,  with  constant 
interruptions  of  their  supplies  and  materials,  permitted  ;  and 
then  was  brought  to  a  sudden  and  compulsory  end.  The 
prophets  upbraided  them  afterwards  for  dwelling  in  their 
ceiled  houses  while  the  house  of  the  Lord  lay  waste  ;  but 
it  is  easy  to  imagine  how  the  hearts  of  the  returned  exiles 
must  have  sunk  at  last  under  so  many  discouragements, 
and  how  their  attempt  to  recover  some  individual  comfort 
by  betaking  themselves  to  the  construction  and  ornamenta- 
tion of  their  own  dwellings  was  an  expedient  to  keep  life 
in  them,  suggested  by  the  weariness  of  their  hearts. 

The  sudden  uprising  of  Haggai  the  prophet,  and  his 
violent  call  upon  the  people  to  resume  the  work  of  the 
Temple,  would   seem  to  have  put  an  end  to  this  disastrous 


332  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  part  hi 

pause.  Whether  the  news  had  penetrated  to  Jerusalem, 
travelling  slowly  as  news  did  in  those  days,  that  a  new 
revolution  had  happened  in  Babylon,  and  a  new  monarch 
had  been  raised  to  the  throne :  or  if  their  persecutors, 
satisfied  with  the  edict  pronounced  against  them,  had 
dropped  apart  and  ceased  to  trouble,  it  is  evident  that  some- 
thing happened  to  revive  the  spirit  of  the  colonists :  and  the 
opportunity  was  seized  to  inspire  the  flagging  patriots  to  a 
completion  of  the  great  national  work.  "  Ye  have  sown 
much,  and  bring  in  little,"  cries  the  prophet.  "  Ye  looked 
for  much,  and  lo  !  it  came  to  little,"  words  which  must  have 
penetrated  into  every  heart.  If  he  attributed  this  fact  more 
to  their  own  sins  and  indifference  than  to  any  external  agency, 
no  doubt  in  every  man's  conscience  that  also  was  true. 

But    the    long-disused    cry    of    prophetic    reproach    and 
encouragement     moved     both     rulers     and    people    like    a 
trumpet-blast.      They  resumed   the  work,   it  would   appear, 
with  such  an  impulse   of  renewed   energy  that    it    attracted 
the    attention    of   a    more    important    personage    than    the 
Samaritan   conspirators  who  had  procured  the  decree  against 
them.      "  Tatnai,  governor  on  this  side    of   the  river,"  that 
is,   from    Euphrates    southward,  the   Satrap  of   Syria,  came 
in   person   to   inquire  into  what  they  were  doing.      He  was 
not  a  national   enemy  or  envious  person,  but  an   impartial 
official  representing  imperial  authority.      His  report  to  Darius 
has  all  the  calm  of  power  in  it,  with  no  ulterior  motive.      He 
found  these  men,  who  were  too  obscure  and  far  off  ever  to 
have  attracted  the  attention  of  the  great  Darius,  building  in 
the  wilds  "  the  house  of  the  great  God,"  evidently  so  magni- 
ficent and  unusual  a  work  that  it  needed  explanation.      "  The 
work,"  he  adds,  "  goeth  fast  on,  and  prospereth  in  their  hands." 
The  viceroy,  with  his  band,  had   gone  up  the  hill  to  inquire 
into  this  wonderful  undertaking  :   "  Who  commanded  you  to 
build  this  house,  and  to  make  up  these  walls  ? "  he  asked. 
The  meeting  took  place,  in  all  probability,  outside  the  northern 
gate,  as  was  usual — unless,  indeed,  the  satrap,  in  his  surprise, 
pushed  on  into  the  interior,  into  the  midst  of  the  very  courts 
themselves,  not  yet  closed  to  Gentile  feet,  where  the  Tyrian 


IN   THE  TEMPLE  ENCLOSURE:    THE  TOMB  Oe  ELIAS 


CHAP.  I  ZERUBB ABEL— EZRA  335 

masons  were  building,  and  the  Levite  overseers  measuring 
and  planning. 

Zerubbabcl,  of  the  house  of  David,  a  prince  of  a  dynasty 
which  had  outlived  many  empires,  and  Jeshua  the  high  priest, 
scarcely  less  dignified  in  descent,  still  more  so  in  office,  with 
other  leaders  of  the  Jews,  heads  of  well-known  families,  met 
the  Syrian  prince  with  a  demeanour  which  he,  in  high 
authority  himself,  would  be  able  to  appreciate.  "  We  asked 
their  names  also  to  certify  them,"  he  says,  reporting  to  his 
master  their  statement  that  their  permission  to  rebuild  the 
Temple  of  the  God  of  heaven  came  from  Cyrus  himself,  who 
had  given  them  back  out  of  his  treasuries  "  the  golden  and 
silver  vessels  of  the  house  of  God  which  Nebuchadnezzar 
took."  "  Now,  therefore,"  says  the  Satrap,  "  if  it  seem  good 
to  the  king,  let  there  be  search  made  in  the  king's  treasure- 
house,  which  is  there  at  Babylon,  whether  it  be  so."  Tatnai 
must  have  been  impressed  by  the  wonderful  work  of  the.se 
men,  which  was  not  for  their  own  benefit  but  for  the  house 
of  "  the  great  God,  the  God  of  heaven  and  earth,"  not  the 
God  of  the  Jews,  it  will  be  remarked.  Nothing  so  remark- 
able had  come  under  his  cognisance  before.  This  people  had 
travelled  over  hills  and  deserts,  a  long  and  weary  journey,  to 
a  ruined  town,  away  from  their  safe  establishment  in  Babylon  ; 
for  wtiat  ?  For  this  house  of  God.  It  is  clear  that  the 
governor  had  no  desire  to  stop  the  work  now  proceeding  so 
happily  in  the  sudden  new  influx  of  earnestness  and  enthu- 
siasm roused  by  the  exhortations  of  the  prophets,  the  strong 
outcry  of  Haggai,  the  happy  visions  of  Zechariah.  There  is 
a  serious  interest  in  all  he  writes,  a  desire  to  do  justice  to 
such  singular  enthusiasts,  and  to  have  a  sufficient  warrant 
for  their  work,  with  which  he  has  no  inclination  to  interfere. 

It  would  almost  seem  as  if  the  same  interest  had  com- 
municated itself  to  the  officials  of  the  new  empire  :  among 
whom,  no  doubt,  were  Jews,  determined  to  leave  no  stone 
unturned  for  the  benefit  of  their  brethren  and  the  great  work, 
dear,  even  when  they  had  not  elected  to  take  part  in  it,  to 
every  Hebrew  heart :  for  they  were  evidently  not  content 
with  their  fruitless  researches  in  the  record  office  at  Babylon, 


336  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  part  in 

the  precious  decree  being  found  at  Ecbatana,  "  in  the  palace 
that  is  in  the  province  of  the  Medes."  InteHigence  was 
immediately  communicated  to  the  Syrian  satrap  that  the 
ediot  had  been  found,  and  contained  even  more  than  the 
Jews  claimed,  no  less  than  a  large  contribution  being  pro- 
mised to  the  expense  of  the  building,  and  a  subsidy  of 
animals  and  provisions  to  be  given  day  by  day  without  fail, 
"  that  they  may  offer  sacrifices  of  sweet  savours  unto  the  God 
of  heaven,  and  pray  for  the  life  of  the  king,  and  of  his  sons," 
Darius  established,  accordingly,  all  that  his  great  predecessor 
had  done,  annulled  the  edict  of  the  usurper,  and  charged  his 
viceroy  to  see  that  his  orders  were  fulfilled. 

There   was   henceforward    no   further    opposition   to   the 
great  work.      Four  years   more  elapsed   before  the  building 
was  completed,  but   in   the   sixth   year   of  Darius   the   new 
Temple  was  consecrated,  and  the  Feast  of  the  Passover  kept 
in  the  restored  and   renovated  city.      Whether  it  was  con- 
spicuously   inferior    to    its    predecessor,    as    various    indirect 
allusions  would  seem  to  imply,  or  whether  it  was   really  a 
greater   edifice,   is   a  point   on   which  there  is   much   diver- 
gence of  opinion.      The  measurements  as  ordained  by  Cyrus 
are  much  larger  than  those  of  the  Temple  of  Solomon,  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  "  the  day  of  small  things  "  mentioned  by 
Zechariah  would  evidently  seem  to  refer  to  the  comparative 
insignificance  of  the  building  ;  and  Haggai  asks,  "  Who  is 
left  among  you  that  saw  this  house  in  her  first  glory  ?  and 
how  do  you  see  it  now  ?  is  it  not  in  your  eyes  in  comparison 
of  it  as  nothing  ?  "     This,  however,  was  said  while  the  work 
was  still  incomplete,  and  when  the  two  or  three  venerable 
fathers  who   might   survive,  if  any  such  were,  had  shaken 
their  heads  in  the  habitual  usage  of  old  age  over  the  pos- 
sibility that  such  raw  new  walls  could  ever  equal  the  Temple 
which  they  saw,  more  glorious  than  ever  reality  was,  through 
the  mists  of  childish  remembrance  far  away.      Such  old  men 
as  could  have  seen  "  the  house  in   her  first  glory  "  must  by 
that  time  have  reached  the  extreme  limit  of  mortality,  nearly 
a  hundred  years.      It  is  very  possible,  as  so  often  happens 
in   human   affairs,  that  both  of  the  differing  views  on   this 


ZERUBBABEL EZRA 


337 


subject  may  be  true — that  the  second  Temple  was  larger 
than  the  old  according  to  the  stipulations  of  Cyrus,  but  that 
it  was  very  far  from  being  so  richly  and  lavishly  decorated, 
a  thing  almost  certain  in  the  circumstances  of  its  re-erection. 
The  record  here  stops,  its  special  object  being  accom- 


SCUl.l'TUREI)   CAI  ITAL 


plished  :  and  the  personal  narrative  of  Ezra  begins. 
Whether  he  was  the  author  of  the  previous  piece  of  history, 
or  merely  its  editor,  is  not  known  nor  is  it  of  the  slightest 
importance.  It  was  natural  that  it  should  be  written  by 
one  who  witnessed  that  remarkable  episode,  and  there  are 
some  touches  in  it  such  as  that  of  the  mingled  sound  of  joy 
and  weeping  at  the  beginning  of  the  work  which  could  only 
have   been    made    by   an    actual    spectator :  but    the    chief 

z 


338  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  tart  hi 

figures  of  Zerubbabel  and  Jeshua  are  so  wholly  without  char- 
acter, mere  names  in  the  history,  that  it  can  scarcely  have 
been  done  by  any  immediate  follower  of  theirs,  and  may 
simply  have  been  put  together  by  Ezra  from  notes  or  oral 
report.  The  greater  part  of  the  generation  which  had 
built  the  Temple,  and  re-established  the  city,  had  passed 
away  before  he  appears  upon  the  scene.  Prince  and 
high  priest  were  both  gone,  the  latter  replaced  by  his 
grandson,  the  former,  it  would  appear,  not  replaced  at  all,  but 
succeeded  by  a  council  of  nobles  and  rulers.  Ezra  was  him- 
self no  Hebrew  official,  but  a  most  important  visitor  from 
Babylon,  apparently  holding  office  in  the  government  there, 
although  his  special  studies  had  been  in  the  law  of  Moses. 
But  the  fact  that  "  the  king  granted  him  all  his  request  " 
shows  that  he  had  attained,  like  the  Hebrews,  great  in- 
fluence and  favour  with  the  reigning  potentate. 

This  is  calculated  to  have  been  Artaxerxes  or 
Xerxes  Longimanus,  the  grandson  of  Darius :  so  that 
rather  more  than  half  a  century  occurred  between  the 
completion  of  the  Temple  under  the  protecting  edict  of 
Darius,  and  the  visit  of  Ezra.  In  the  meantime  there  had 
occurred  in  Shushan,  which  was  the  residence  of  the  great 
Persian  monarch,  that  curious  story  of  Providential  guid- 
ance as  well  as  palace  intrigue  which  we  call  the  book  of 
Esther,  a  proof  of  the  very  general  prevalence  of  Jewish 
influence  in  the  highest  centres  of  Babylon,  which,  no  doubt, 
accounts  for  the  almost  invariable  protection  and  favour  with 
which  Jersualem  was  regarded.  Ezra  had,  no  doubt,  heard 
rumours  of  the  laxity  of  morals  in  the  holy  city,  and  that 
there  were  some  points  in  which  reformation  was  most 
important  if  the  independence  and  unity  of  the  nation  were 
to  be  preserved.  It  would  almost  seem  as  if  he  had  laid  his 
anxieties  before  the  king  and  drawn  that  monarch  into  a 
certain  sympathy  with  them :  so  that  Artaxerxes  himself, 
the  husband  of  Esther,  and  naturally  as  may  be  supposed 
taking  an  interest  in  her  race,  was  led  to  charge  the  scribe 
with  a  special  imperial  mission,  to  visit  and  inquire  into  the 
spiritual   state  and   position   towards  the   law   of  the  ancient 


ZERUBBABEL EZRA 


339 


people,  "  to  inquire  concerning  Judah  and  Jerusalem,  accord- 
ing to  the  law  of  God  which  is  in  thine  hand."  That  this 
was  a  part  only  of  Ezra's  charge,  and  that  he  was  also  an 
imperial  commissioner  to  inquire  into  the  government  of  the 
whole  state  on  "  this  side  of  the  river,"  the   satrapy  of  Syria, 


SCULl'TUKtU  CAl'llAI. 


has  been  imagined  :  but  it  is  a  point  on  which  there  is  no 
information.  That  he  had  a  very  special  mission  for  the 
Jews  is,  however,  evident  from  the  fact  that  he  was  permitted 
to  take  with  him  as  many  of  the  remaining  exiles  as  desired 
to  go,  some  two  thousand  in  all — chiefly,  it  would  appear,  of 
the  Levitical  tribe  which  had  held  back  on  the  previous 
occasion,  priests,  singers,  porters,  etc.,  of  a  timorous  mind, 
whose  descendants  were  ready  to  accompany   the  imperial 


340  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  part  in 

emissary  now  that  all  danger  was  over.  Ezra  also  took 
with  him  a  large  contribution  from  the  king  and  his 
counsellors,  "  freely  offered "  this  time  "  unto  the  God  of 
Israel,"  a  title,  no  doubt,  proudly  imposed  by  the  Israelite 
official  as  claiming  the  great  God  of  heaven  to  be  especially 
his  own.  The  mandate  is  urgent  and  detailed,  ordering  a 
subsidy  up  to  "  an  hundred  talents  of  silver,  and  to  an  hundred 
measures  of  wheat,  and  to  an  hundred  baths  of  wine,  and  to 
an  hundred  baths  of  oil,  and  salt  without  prescribing  how 
much,"  which  was  to  be  supplied  by  the  local  government 
"  beyond  the  river."  Ezra  would  be  a  most  welcome  visitor 
to  Jerusalem  with  all  those  treasures.  By  this  time  the 
common  tenor  of  life  must  have  been  re-established  there, 
although,  no  doubt,  much  was  yet  to  be  desired,  and  little  had 
been  done  towards  the  "  beautifying  of  the  Temple,"  the 
purpose  for  which  the  gifts  of  Artaxerxes  were  made. 

The  work  of  Haggai  and  Zechariah  was  long  over,  and 
neither  prophet  nor  poet  existed  to  make  known  the  condition 
of  affairs  :  silence  had  fallen  upon  the  sacred  city,  silence 
and  peace  and  the  deadening  influence  of  settled  and  quiet 
provincial  life.  The  Jews  never  seem  for  a  moment  to  have 
relapsed  into  idolatry,  that  continual  danger  of  their  previous 
history.  What  was  the  reason  of  this  extraordinary  and 
fundamental  change  we  are  nowhere  told,  nor  is  it  even 
commented  upon  by  prophet  or  lawgiver  :  but  it  had  silently 
taken  place,  a  change  more  great  than  captivity  or  restora- 
tion. Though  Ezra's  mission  was  that  of  a  reformer  he  finds 
no  high  places  to  destroy,  no  idols  to  cast  down.  That 
danger  was  over  for  ever,  without  remark.  The  captivity, 
no  doubt,  had  been  a  powerful  lesson,  but  even  that  seems 
scarcely  enough  to  account  for  a  revolution  so  complete. 
Was  it,  perhaps,  the  fulfilment  of  so  many  prophecies,  the 
unexpected  favour  of  Cyrus,  in  addition  to  the  many 
practical  lessons  they  had  received  ? — or  had  the  revelation 
to  them  of  another  conquering  people  whose  faith  was  in 
one  great  God  of  heaven  like  theirs  produced  a  salutary  effect 
upon  their  minds  and  helped  to  settle  their  faith  ?  The 
state  of  affairs  which   Ezra  went  to  set  right  was,  however. 


CHAP.  I  ZERUBBABEL EZRA  341 

calculated  more  than  anything  else  could  be  to  endanger 
this  satisfactory  change.  When  the  Jews  found  themselves 
established  and  at  peace,  they  had  at  once  reverted  to  their 
old  practice  of  marriages  with  the  aborigines,  Canaanites, 
Hittites,  Jebusites,  and  the  rest,  and  especially  it  would  seem 
with  the  mixed  race  of  Samaritans,  without  consideration  of 
the  dangers  involved.  These  alliances  had  checked  the  pro- 
gress of  the  people  again  and  again,  and  restored  idolatrous 
practices  in  Jerusalem.  It  was  necessary  now  to  stop  them 
at  once  and  with  a  high  hand  before  further  evil  ensued. 

Ezra  arrived  in  Jerusalem  in  the  fifth  month  from  his 
departure  from  Babylon.  The  journey  had  been  long  and 
perilous,  no  doubt  delayed  by  many  pauses  and  round- 
about ways  to  keep  out  of  dangerous  encounters  ;  for  the 
expedition  was  chiefly  made  up  of  men  of  peace,  and 
"  I  was  ashamed,"  Ezra  says,  "  to  require  of  the  king  a 
band  of  soldiers  and  horsemen  to  help  us  against  the 
enemy  in  the  way :  because  we  had  spoken  unto  the  king, 
saying,  The  hand  of  our  God  is  upon  all  them  for  good  that 
seek  him."  The  danger  of  such  a  party  carrying  much 
treasure  of  silver  and  gold,  not  only  the  offerings  of  the 
king  but  those  of  the  rich  Jews  in  Babylon,  and  hampered 
"  with  our  little  ones  and  all  our  substance,"  as  is  expressly 
mentioned,  would  not  be  small :  but  their  confidence  was, 
notwithstanding  the  fears  of  their  leader,  justified,  and  they 
arrived  at  last  in  safety.  It  is  difficult  to  tell  exactly  what 
Ezra's  commission  from  Artaxerxes  was  :  "  to  set  magistrates 
and  judges,  which  may  judge  all  the  people  that  are  beyond 
the  river,  all  such  as  know  the  laws  of  God,"  seems  a  much 
larger  commission  than  anything  that  could  concern  Jeru- 
salem and  Judah.  It  would  seem  to  have  given  him  a  charge 
over  the  Samaritans  also,  who  in  a  certain  sense  knew  the 
laws  of  God  and  in  an  imperfect  way  retained  the  sacrificial 
system  and  the  worship  of  the  Jews  ;  and  also  over  all 
scattered  knots  of  people  settled  on  the  south  side  of  the 
Euphrates  who  might  be  of  Jewish  origin  and  faith.  But 
Jerusalem  was  the  chief  point  of  the  journey,  and  we  hear 
of  none  of  his  other  proceedings  outside  its  walls. 


342  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  tart  in 

He  had  scarcely  arrived,  however,  and  made  his  sacri- 
fices, and  paid  his  vows,  when  the  princes  and  heads  of  the 
restored  community  came  to  him  witli  their  statement  of  the 
circumstances,  which  had  alarmed  the  visitor  when  he  heard 
of  them  in  distant  Babylon,  and  which  filled  the  magnates 
of  Jerusalem  with  anxiety  and  perplexity.  Not  only  the 
common  people  but  the  priests,  the  Levites,  the  very  princes 
themselves,  were  involved  in  this  national  offence.  It  was 
the  beginning  of  a  change  which  they  felt  might  bring  back 
all  the  evils  and  the  offences  of  old  ;  for  who  could  secure 
the  children  from  following  their  mothers'  faith,  or  make 
true  Hebrews  of  those  who  had  been  brought  up  to  consider 
Baal  as  equally  sacred  and  powerful  with  the  great  God  who 
made  earth  and  heaven  ? 

The  genuine  grief  and  distress  of  Ezra  cannot  be  doubted, 
yet  his  immediate  actions  were  intended  to  impress  and  alarm, 
with  something  of  that  eloquence  of  sign  and  external  type 
which  was  peculiar  to  the  prophets,  the  imagination  of 
Jerusalem.  His  meeting  with  the  princes  must  have  taken 
place  either  in  the  courts  of  the  Temple  or  in  one  of 
those  chambers  opening  upon  them,  which  were  open  to  the 
general  view,  like  that  in  which  Baruch  had  read  the  roll  of 
Jeremiah's  prophecies  to  the  people.  When  he  heard  their 
report  in  the  midst  of  the  assembly,  which  had  gathered 
round,  of  "  every  one  that  trembled  at  the  words  of  the  God  of 
Israel,  because  of  the  transgression  of  those  that  had  been 
carried  away,"  Ezra  rent  his  garment  and  his  mantle  in  the 
sight  of  all,  "  and  plucked  off  the  hair  of  my  head  and  of  my 
beard,  and  sat  down  astonied."  The  wonder  of  the  eager  crowd 
pressing  round  to  gaze  at  the  great  stranger  newly  arrived 
with  such  a  following,  bringing  such  offerings,  a  man  so 
distinguished  and  important — when  they  beheld  him  thus 
delivering  himself  to  a  transport  of  sorrow,  was  great  and 
overwhelming.  He  "  sat  astonied  till  the  evening  sacrifice," 
like  a  man  bowed  down  by  grief ;  and  when  that  hour  came, 
and  the  smoke  arose  through  the  clear  air  towards  the 
serene  heavens  veiling  themselves  in  the  softness  of  the 
coming   night,  this  observed   of  all    men    rose  up  and  once 


ciiAi'.  1  ZERUBBABEL EZRA  343 

more  tearing  his  ample  robes  fell  upon  his  knees  in  sight  of 
all,  and  spread  out  his  hands  to  God. 

Ezra's  prayer  was  (in  a  legitimate  sense)  addressed  not 
only  to  God  but  to  the  hearers  on  earth,  whose  sins  and  not- 
his  own  he  was  confessing.  "  I  am  ashamed  and  blush  to 
lift  up  my  face  to  thee,  my  God."  He  had  been  ashamed 
to  show  any  want  of  confidence  in  God's  protection  when 
he  and  his  band  faced  the  dangers  of  the  way  without 
escort.  But  now  that  all  these  dangers  were  over,  and  he 
had  arrived  in  that  dearest  spot  on  earth  to  all  true  Hebrews, 
there  was  no  joy,  no  triumph,  on  his  lips.  The  crowd, 
growing  more  and  more  silent  as  they  listened,  feeling 
themselves  arraigned  before  the  bar,  must  have  followed, 
breathless,  every  word.  "  Should  we  again  break  thy 
commandments,"  he  cried,  "  and  join  in  affinity  with  the 
people  of  these  abominations  ?  ...  we  who  are  but  as 
a  remnant  escaped.  Behold  we  are  before  thee  in  our 
trespasses  ;  for  we  cannot  stand  before  thee  because  of 
this."  Conviction  of  the  terrible  danger  they  ran,  of  the 
probable  repetition  of  God's  judgments  which  this  time  would 
not  leave  a  remnant  to  escape,  seems  at  once  to  have  pene- 
trated the  heart  of  the  multitude.  No  doubt  rumours  of 
the  special  object  of  the  great  envoy  had  already  spread 
among  them,  quickening  their  apprehension.  Only  a  small 
portion  of  them  had  really  offended  as  yet,  but  they  were  all 
so  closely  related,  and  the  sense  of  their  unity  as  a  nation 
was  so  strong,  that  the  sin  which  struck  at  the  very  root  of 
that  unity  and  special  character  as  a  people,  affected  all. 

When  Ezra  rose  from  his  knees  he  found  himself  sur- 
rounded by  a  very  great  congregation  of  men  and  women  and 
children  :  and  "  the  people  wept  very  sore,"  and  from  the 
midst  of  the  crowd  there  rose  a  man  of  the  people,  not  a 
priest  or  Levite,  who  confessed  the  sin  of  which  they  had 
been  guilty,  and  proposed  that  a  covenant  should  be  made 
"  according  to  the  law  "  for  the  sending  away  of  the  heathen 
women.  It  was  not  a  light  matter,  nor  was  it  so  treated. 
When  the  people  dispersed  sorrowful  and  troubled,  Ezra, 
bearing  his  share  in   their  distress,  "did  eat  no  bread,  nor 


344  THE  RETURN  AND  REST0RA7U0N  part  hi 

drink  water,"  fasting  and  mourning  for  their  transgression, 
and  also  a  little,  let  us  hope,  for  the  hearts  that  were  to  be 
wrung  and  the  houses  that  were  to  be  made  desolate  by  this 
decision.  It  is  clear  that  his  management  of  the  matter  had 
been  conducted  with  the  highest  wisdom  :  for  he  had  not 
himself  pronounced  any  judgment,  notwithstanding  the  wide 
commission,  with  power  of  life  and  death,  that  had  been 
put  into  his  hands.  All  his  proceedings  were  calculated  to 
bring  home  the  conviction  of  that  astonishing  folly  as  well 
as  sin  to  the  minds  of  the  offenders,  so  that  the  proposal  for 
its  rectification  should  proceed  from  themselves. 

Nor  was  there  any  haste  or  arbitrary  cruelty  in  the 
carrying  out  of  this  stern  edict.  Its  necessity  was  allowed 
by  all ;  but  the  whole  city  seems  to  have  felt  the  inevitable 
misery,  and  sympathised  with  the  sufferers.  "  In  the  ninth 
month,  and  the  twentieth  day  of  the  month,"  that  is  to  say  in 
December,  the  rainy  season — and  probably  a  bad  one  from 
the  repeated  mention  of  it — the  people  collected  from  every 
city  in  Judah  and  Benjamin  for  the  settlement  of  this  sad 
national  business.  "  All  the  people  sat  in  the  court  of  the 
house  of  God,  trembling  because  of  this  matter,  and  for  the 
great  rain."  The  combination  of  mental  and  physical  suffer- 
ing and  the  influence  of  the  floods  pouring  from  those  Eastern 
skies,  beating  upon  the  heads  and  penetrating  the  clinging 
garments  of  the  crowd  who  could  not  find  shelter  under  the 
porticoes,  but  had  to  endure  the  deluge  as  they  could  in  the 
open  unsheltered  courts,  adds  a  curiously  graphic  touch  to 
the  narrative.  Wet  and  cold  and  miserable,  as  only  the 
inhabitants  of  a  hot  climate  can  be,  they  stood  and  listened 
to  all  the  transactions,  and  gave  informally  their  adhesion  to 
the  great  national  covenant.  There  were,  as  it  appeared, 
but  a  hundred  and  thirteen  cases  after  all,  nearly  a  quarter 
part  of  the  offenders  being  priests  and  Levites.  Ezra  estab- 
lished a  sort  of  commission  of  inquiry,  which  proceeded 
legally  and  with  deliberate  care  to  examine  every  case, 
while  the  crowd,  released,  stole  away  to  their  lodging  under 
the  wintry  rain,  everything  concurring  to  make  the  occasion 
painful.      It  is  very  seldom   that  the   record  of  bad  weather 


CHAP.  I      '  ZERUBBABEL EZRA  345 

comes  in  in  Scripture  to  aggravate  any  disaster,  but  it  is  a 
very  noticeable  feature  of  the  description  here.  Whether  in 
every  case  the  individual  husband  consented  to  make  the 
renunciation,  whether  merciful  constructions  were  allowed  of 
any  doubtful  case,  or  even  a  point  stretched  if  the  poor 
women  professed  the  faith  of  their  husbands,  we  are  not  told. 
It  seldom  happens  in  any  modern  tribunal  that  such  soften- 
ing expedients  do  not  creep  in  :  but  judgment  was  more  stern 
in  the  elder  ages.  At  least  each  wife  would  have  her  writing 
of  divorcement,  and  would  probably  consent,  with  the  patience 
of  a  creature  born  to  slavery,  to  the  fate  which  she  would 
know  must  have  come  sooner  or  later.  It  was  according  to 
all  modern  codes  a  severe  act ;  but  it  was  one  of  the  utmost 
necessity  and  wisdom  for  the  interests  of  the  Jews,  and  for 
the  preservation  of  their  national  life — the  thing,  which  hav- 
ing learned  more  or  less  their  terrible  lesson,  they  now  felt 
must  be  preserved  at  all  hazards  and  by  any  sacrifice. 

Whether  Ezra  disappeared  altogether  from  the  scene 
after  this  trenchant  act  of  reformation,  whether  he  went 
back  to  Babylon  to  give  in  his  report,  and  discharge  himself 
of  the  responsibility  of  the  supervision  committed  to  his 
hands,  we  are  not  told  ;  but  many  years  elapse  before  we 
find  him  again  in  the  exercise  of  his  office  as  scribe  and 
teacher  in  Jerusalem.  A  certain  modern  touch  is  in  his 
character  and  appearance  altogether,  which  is  that  of  a  man 
full  of  supreme  earnestness  for  his  work,  and  perception  of 
national  necessities,  yet  capable  as  a  few  reformers  have 
been  in  all  ages  of  seeing  the  advantage  of  a  startling  appeal 
to  the  popular  imagination,  a  certain  histrionicism,  if  we 
may  use  the  word,  a  perhaps  studied  demonstration  of  real 
feeling,  an  outburst  having  all  the  force  of  the  uncontrollable, 
yet,  so  to  speak,  done  on  purpose  for  the  sake  of  the  impres- 
sion to  be  produced,  although  absolutely  true  in  the  emotion 
expressed.  There  is  no  real  contradiction  in  these  words, 
and  nothing  in  the  least  false  in  the  course  of  action.  He 
might  have  retired  into  his  chamber,  and  uttered  with  strong 
crying  and  tears  that  prayer  and  confession  which  he  made 
on  his  knees  with  his  arms  stretched  out,  before  the  Temple 


346  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  part  hi 

gates,  with  all  the  startled  people  crowding  round,  over- 
whelmed by  the  contagion  of  that  passionate  sorrow  and 
supplication.  But  nothing  that  he  could  have  said  in  the 
way  of  persuasion  would  probably  have  had  the  same  effect  as 
the  overmastering  remorse  and  appeal  of  that  prayer,  poured 
forth  as  on  the  impulse  of  the  moment  in  the  shock  of  the 
news,  by  the  great  visitor  clothed  in  all  the  power  of 
Babylon,  who  had  come  up  with  joy  to  worship  in  the 
city  of  his  fathers,  and  had  been  there  suddenly  prostrated 
by  the  terrible  information  communicated  to  him.  The 
effect  upon  the  imagination  and  conscience  of  the  assembled 
Jews  was  tremendous,  as  he  had  intended  it  to  be  ;  and  yet 
in  no  way  had  the  boundaries  of  truth  been  transgressed. 

Whether  the  after  result  was  as  complete  as  Ezra  hoped 
may  remain  a  question  ;  for  the  same  difficulty  seems  to 
have  recurred  later,  even  in  such  an  astonishing  instance 
as  that  of  the  high  priest  Eliashib,  who  is  mentioned  as  the 
son-in-law  of  Sanballat  the  Horonite,  and  in  consequence 
showing  special  favour  to  him  and  his  secretary  Tobiah,  who 
was  also  highly  connected  by  intermarriage  with  that  exalted 
Jewish  family.  This  case,  however,  may  have  been  so  far 
modified  that  Sanballat  had  the  blood  of  Israel  in  him,  being 
a  Samaritan  :  and  the  law  might  have  been  stretched  to 
permit  or  at  least  to  sanction  alliances  already  formed,  with 
those  who  though  not  of  the  special  seed  of  Judah  were  still 
more  or  less  Jews,  sharing  many  characteristics  of  the 
chosen  race. 


CHAPTER    II 

NEHEMIAH 

The  mission  of  Ezra  was  a  special  one  of  deep  importance 
to  the  Jewish  nation  as  cutting  off  the  possibiHties  of  relapse 
into  the  one  master- sin  which  had  heretofore  been  their 
bane,  and  cleansing  their  internal  economy  ;  but  it  was 
brief  and  sudden  and  involved  no  external  advance  either 
in  the  great  constructions  going  on  on  all  sides,  or  the 
defence  of  the  nation  from  its  outward  enemies.  Another 
personage  very  unlike  Ezra,  but  still  more  distinct  and 
full  of  character,  now  appears  against  that  tumultuous 
background  of  the  Jewish  capital,  so  full  of  rebellions  and 
sudden  repentances,  the  rising  and  falling  of  a  popular  tide, 
more  marked,  perhaps,  in  its  small  stream  of  existence  than 
it  would  have  been  within  more  extended  limits.  The  Jews 
in  Babylon  fall  altogether  out,  in  a  few  generations,  from 
the  story  of  their  nation  ;  they  had  made  their  choice  to 
remain  there,  in  some  cases,  no  doubt,  willingly,  in  some 
with  painful  submission  to  a  bondage  of  circumstances 
which  they  had  not  strength  or  courage  to  break.  They 
had  been  on  the  verge  of  a  universal  massacre  when 
saved  by  the  interposition  of  Esther  ;  they  were  sub- 
ject to  all  the  vagaries  of  a  monarch's  caprice  and  the 
hatred  of  a  vizier  ;  but  at  the  same  time  they  were  wealthy 
and  safe  from  want  and  the  dangers  of  every  day,  which 
were  compensations  for  the  want  of  freedom,  and  the,  by 
this  time,  chiefly  sentimental  woes  of  exile.  At  the  same 
time  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  were  deeply  interested 


348  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  part  hi 

in  the  story  of  their  brethren,  and  the  progress  of  affairs  at 
Jerusalem,  and  that  the  travellers  who  went  and  came, 
whether  on  imperial  business,  or  about  their  own  affairs, 
were  eagerly  surrounded  and  questioned  whenever  they 
appeared. 

By  this  means,  and  by  such  lingering  slowly-conveyed 
letters  as  were  possible,  they  must  have  heard  of  the  suc- 
cessive troubles  and  triumphs  of  their  race,  of  the  delays 
of  the  Temple-building,  consequent  on  the  necessity  of 
housing  the  pilgrims  and  their  families,  of  the  slow  work 
of  clearing  the  ruins,  of  the  opposition  of  hostile  neigh- 
bours, the  sudden  alarms  of  a  threatened  attack,  the 
constant  state  of  harassed  watchfulness  in  which  the 
enemies  without  kept  the  defenceless  colony,  encamped 
within  those  broken  walls  which  could  not  resist  any 
systematic  assault.  They  must  have  heard,  too,  of  the 
completion  at  last  of  the  great  work  with  commemorative 
meetings  and  sympathetic  rejoicings  among  themselves  ; 
and  of  Ezra's  mission  with  probably  less  sympathy  than 
reprobation  of  the  weak  brethren  who  thus  risked  a  new 
downfall  for  such  a  perishing  thing  as  a  foreign  wife.  The 
interest  with  which  every  detail  would  be  received  even 
when  the  eager  listeners  were  no  more  than  grandchildren 
or  great-grandchildren  of  the  captivity,  is  plain  enough  ; 
they  listened  for  every  rumour  with  the  strained  attention 
which  was  more  private  and  personal  than  public  interest 
generally  is,  following  their  distant  brethren  through  stage 
after  stage.  And  when  the  renewed  Jerusalem  became  an 
established  fact,  once  more  a  city  full  of  people,  full,  at 
least  in  the  Temple  treasury,  of  wealth,  it  is  natural  to 
imagine  that  their  satisfaction  and  joy  blinded  them  a  little 
to  the  dangers  still  surrounding  that  capital  of  their  race, 
replanted  in  the  midst  of  enemies,  and  with  very  ineffectual 
means  of  defence.  They  had  already  subscribed  and  offered 
a  great  deal  for  this  vast  national  work  :  it  is  very  probable 
that  they  now  felt  they  had  done  enough. 

This,  however,  was  not  the  sentiment  of  one  young  man, 
of  the  class  of  those   Hebrew  courtiers  who  had   found   so 


NEHEMIAH  349 


much  acceptance  with  all  the  monarchs  in  Babylon,  both  of 
Assyrian  and  Persian  race  :  and  the  narrative  carries  us  at 
once  to  the  palace  of  the  ancient  potentate,  the  great 
Xerxes,  where  he  dwelt  at  Shushan — to  the  vast  cool  courts, 
emblazoned  with  stately  decoration,  and  full  of  a  pictur- 
esque and  every-varying  ]^3astern  crowd  of  courtiers  and 
suppliants.  Among  these  was  a  group,  brown  and  travel- 
worn,  of  messengers  from  Jerusalem,  to  whom  the  king's 
cupbearer  Nehemiah,  in  the  rich  apparel  of  those  that 
dwell  in  king's  houses,  drew  hastily  near  to  ask  what  was 
the  news.  The  news  was  not  cheerful.  The  population  of 
Jerusalem,  "  the  remnant  that  was  left  of  the  captivity," 
were  in  trouble  and  alarm  because  of  the  broken  walls  and 
vacant  gateways  which  left  the  way  of  access  into  the  city 
free  to  every  enemy,  doubly  dangerous  from  the  fact  that 
the  whole  surrounding  country  was  full  of  hostile  bands. 
Nehemiah  was  deeply  moved  by  these  tidings :  and  he 
was  a  man  full  of  energy,  little  apt  to  content  himself  with 
expressions  of  sympathy.  A  sudden  resolution  sprang  up 
in  his  breast.  He  wept  and  fasted  and  mourned  "  certain 
days,"  praying  and  imploring  "  the  Lord  God  of  heaven  " — 
which  seems  to  have  been  the  special  title  of  God  among 
the  Persians — to  have  mercy  upon  his  people  and  to  grant 
the  prayer  which  he,  Nehemiah,  should  make  to  his  master, 
"  this  man  "  into  whose  presence  he  was  about  to  be  called 
to  fulfil  his  period  of  service.  "  I  had  not  been  aforetime 
sad  in  his  presence,"  Nehemiah  says  in  his  autobiography  ; 
for  he  was  young,  a  man  of  conscious  power,  doing  what- 
ever his  hand  found  to  do  with  all  his  might.  The  king, 
it  is  evident,  took  a  kind  interest  in  his  attendants,  and  he 
remarked  at  once  the  cupbearer's  change  of  mien.  It  was 
a  cheerful  office,  and  the  clouded  looks  of  him  who  poured 
out  the  wine  diminished  the  king's  satisfaction  in  the  draught. 
He  paused  to  inquire  what  was  the  matter,  with  real  interest. 
"  This  can  be  nothing  but  sorrow  of  heart."  Nehemiah  was 
"  very  sore  afraid "  notwithstanding  the  paternal  kindness 
of  his  monarch.  He  answered — with  an  internal  prayer  that 
God  would  give  him  favour  in  his  master's  sight :  "  O  king, 


350  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  part  hi 

live  for  ever :  why  should  not  my  countenance  be  sad,  when 
the  city,  the  place  of  my  fathers'  sepulchres,  lieth  waste,  and 
the  gates  thereof  are  consumed  with  fire  ?  " 

Artaxerxes  must  have  been  by  this  time  well  acquainted 
with  the  necessities  of  Jerusalem  and  her  frequent  appeals  to 
his  charity.  He  answered  indulgently  as  who  should  say, 
"  What  is  wanted  now  ?  "  They  must  have  been  good  and 
faithful  servants,  so  unfailing  was  his  toleration  and  bounty 
for  those  Jews,  of  whose  allegiance,  as  a  people  having 
nothing  to  gain  by  any  political  overthrow,  he  must  have 
been  certainly  assured.  When  Nehemiah  made  his  prayer 
to  be  sent  to  Jerusalem  that  he  might  build  the  ruined  walls, 
the  king  would  seem  to  have  made  no  objection  except  a 
flattering  question  as  to  how  long  the  journey  was,  and  when 
he  might  be  expected  to  return  ;  and  granted  him  letters 
"  to  the  keepers  of  the  king's  forest "  for  timber,  and  recom- 
mendations to  "  the  governors  beyond  the  river  "  to  further 
his  undertaking  in  every  way.  It  would  seem  that 
Nehemiah  was  also  invested  with  the  authority  of  governor 
or  Tirshatha,  there  being  at  the  time  no  sole  responsible 
authority  in  the  city,  but  only  a  council  of  rulers,  chiefly 
priests,  with,  perhaps,  the  advice  and  help  of  Ezra,  whom  we 
find  once  more  in  Jerusalem  after  an  interval  of  twenty 
years,  on  the  arrival  of  his  successor  in  the  Scripture  records. 
Nehemiah  took  with  him  no  such  Jewish  contingent  as  that 
which  had  followed  Ezra  :  a  significant  fact  as  showing  that 
the  number  of  those  willing  to  undertake  hardship  and 
unsettlement  of  life  for  the  sake  of  their  religion  and  nation 
was  now  exhausted.  But  the  new  Tirshatha  had  with  him 
instead  an  escort  of  "  captains  of  the  army  and  horsemen  " 
to  guard  him  from  the  danger  of  the  way. 

For  three  days  after  his  arrival  Nehemiah  would  seem 
to  have  rested  from  his  journey  and  apparently  said  nothing 
of  his  special  object.  We  may  understand  that  he  was 
received  and  acknowledged  at  once  as  in  authority  over  the 
city,  the  priests  being  in  no  condition  to  oppose  any  of  his 
requirements,  and  probably  having  no  wish  to  do  so  :  for  the 
succour  of  a  strong  officer  of  the  empire  backed  by  certain 


NEHEMIAH  351 


spears,  would  be  no  small  comfort  to  them  in  face  of  the 
continued  strife  round  about,  and  the  machinations  of  enemies 
not  powerful  enough  to  attack  but  continually  threatening. 
After  this  period  of  rest  Nehemiah  rose  one  night  when  all 
was  still  in  the  city — "  I  and  some  few  men  with  me  " — and 
went  out  to  reconnoitre.  His  attendants  followed  on  foot 
while  he  rode  round  Jerusalem,  coming  out  by  "  the  gate  of 
the  valley,"  a  gate  opening  upon  the  valley  of  Hinnom  in 
something  of  the  position  of  the  present  Jaffa  gate,  or  a 
little  farther  to  the  south  at  the  extreme  angle  of  the 
city  walls.  This  would  bring  him  out  on  the  slopes  of 
Zion,  to  the  path  which  skirted  the  south  wall,  lead- 
ing downward  across  the  ravine  of  the  Tyropoeon  valley, 
past  the  pools  of  Siloam  and  the  gardens  of  Ophel  till  he 
reached  the  valley  of  the  Kedron,  along  which  he  rode  "  in 
the  night,"  as  he  repeats,  "  and  viewed  the  wall."  We  may 
take  it  for  granted  that  the  moon  shone  over  the  well  of 
Job,  the  widening  valley  towards  the  south,  and  the  dark 
hill  of  evil  counsel :  upon  the  outer  wall  of  the  Temple  en- 
closure, where  Solomon's  great  blocks  of  stone  were  still 
fixed  everlasting  on  their  foundation  of  rock  :  and  glimmered 
in  the  pool  of  Siloam  and  the  glittering  thread  of  Kedron, 
making  fantastic  fortifications  of  the  rocky  village  which  the 
Phoenician  builders  had  founded,  and  throwing  long  shadows 
of  the  gnarled  olive-trees  upon  that  spot,  ever  sacred  to 
memory,  where  our  Lord  went  through  His  hour  of  anguish. 
It  was  probably  the  same  road  as  that  which  Jesus  and  His 
disciples  took  in  the  darkening  of  the  night  from  the  tra- 
ditionary spot  where  the  Last  Supper  was  eaten,  to  the 
enclosure  of  Gethsemane.  But  that  was  still  far  in  the 
future  when  Nehemiah  and  his  party  stumbled  among  the 
dark  hillocks  and  inspected  the  broken  walks.  At  this  spot 
the  outer  wall  of  the  Temple  enclosure  is  now  the  wall  of 
Jerusalem,  and  crowns  a  steep  bank  which  is  in  itself  a  forti- 
fication of  nature  :  but  then,  it  would  appear,  an  outer  wall 
of  defence  doubled  the  strength  of  the  city  and  the  holy 
place.  There,  it  is  said,  he  "  turned  back,  and  entered  again 
by  the  gate  of  the  valley  "  bj'  which  he  had  come  out ;  the 


352 


THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION 


natural  sense  of  which  is  that  he  stopped  half-way  where  the 
traditional  Bethesda  glimmered  black  in  shadow  under  the 
side  wall  of  the  Temple  and  took  no  trouble  with  the  other 
fortifications  where  the  wall  trends  towards  the  north.  Per- 
haps the  city  then  extended  but  little  beyond  that  point : 
and  he  must  have  seen  the  state  of  the  northern  wall  on  his 
arrival  and  probably  did  not  need  to  repeat  the  investigation  ; 
the  ruins  there,  always  the  point  of  attack,  being  so  con- 
spicuous as  to  require  no  private  examination. 

It  was  on   the   next   morning,  probably,  after  this  secret 


NORTH-EAST  CORNER   OF    WALL,    TEMPLE   ENCLOSURE  (hARAM-ESH-SHERIf) 


circuit,  that  he  called  the  rulers  together  and  explained  to 
them  his  special  mission.  "  Let  us  rise  up  and  build,"  was 
their  immediate  reply.  There  could  be  no  doubt  about  the 
necessity  of  the  work,  and  probably  Nehemiah's  plan  which 
he  divulged  to  them,  by  which  every  man  should  take  part 
in  the  labour,  depending  upon  no  slow  progress  of  hired 
workmen,  but  carrying  on  the  whole  simultaneously,  each 
division  of  the  city  and  every  family  of  importance  working 
at  its  own  portion,  commended  itself  at  once  to  the  minds  of 
the  ecclesiastics  who  probably,  unaccustomed  to  such  practical 
matters,  had   thought  of  nothing  but  the  risks   and   cost  of 


NEHEMIAH  353 


a  long  undertaking,  calling  the  attention  of  foes  outside,  and 
perhaps  drawing  upon  themselves  direct  attack. 

Here  the  opponents  and  enemies  of  Jerusalem  come 
clearly  into  sight,  watching  with  jealous  eyes  all  that  was 
being  done.  Were  they  actually  in  the  city,  overflowing  the 
chamber  in  the  Temple  itself  which  Eliashib,  the  high  priest 
(though  no  traitor),  had  given  up  to  them  in  consideration  of 
relationship  ?  or  were  they  hanging  about  the  outskirts  with  the 
usual  armed  attendance  of  Eastern  chiefs,  hearing  everything 
that  went  on,  and  ever  ready  for  hostilities  and  to  stop  any 
dangerous  movement  ?  "  Sanballat  the  Horonite,  and  Tobiah 
the  servant,  the  Ammonite,  and  Geshem  the  Arabian,"  are 
the  three  chiefs  whose  names  are  suddenly  brought  before 
us.  "  They  laughed  us  to  scorn,  and  despised  us,  and  said. 
What  is  this  thing  that  ye  do  ?  will  ye  rebel  against  the 
king  ?  "  Nehemiah,  however,  gave  them  no  light  upon  his 
plan,  nor  even  upon  the  high  authority  which  had  been  com- 
mitted to  him,  but  went  on  quietly  organising  his  work. 
"  Ye  have  no  portion,  nor  right,  nor  memorial  in  Jerusalem," 
he  said.  The  traditionary  enmity  between  the  Jews  and  the 
Samaritans,  kept  up  as  we  know  for  hundreds  of  years, 
evidently  originated  in  the  proceedings  of  this  period  and 
the  obstinate  but  fruitless  attempts  made  by  the  mixed  race 
to  crush  the  Jews  of  the  captivity  and  prevent  them  from 
regaining  their  independence ;  a  course  ol  action  natural 
enough  if  we  remember  that,  as  has  been  seen,  their 
daughters  were  treated  as  heathens,  and  cut  off  from  the 
holy  city,  though  they  were  themselves  conscious  and  proud 
of  an  Israelitish  descent.  That  affront,  never  to  be  forgotten, 
had,  no  doubt,  exasperated  the  original  jealousy  which  made 
the  Samaritans  conspire  against  the  peace  of  Jerusalem,  and 
the  re-crection  of  the  holy  place  :  and  which  now  burst  forth 
in  many  demonstrations  of  exaggerated  spite  and  ill-feeling 
— which  were,  however,  impotent  in  face  of  a  strong  man 
like  Nehemiah,  and  the  authority  from  headquarters  with 
which  he  was  charged. 

And  then  the  plan,  which,  no  doubt,  he  had  matured  in 
his  mind   during  the  long  days  and   nights  of  his  journey, 

2  A 


354  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  fart  in 

probably  with  the  help  of  some  rude  image  of  the  beloved 
city  such  as  that  upon  Ezekiel's  tile,  or  the  detailed  and 
often-repeated  descriptions  upon  which  the  childhood  of  the 
sons  of  the  captivity  was  nourished — was  carried  suddenly 
and  at  once  into  effect.  When  the  common  crowd  opened  its 
eyes  in  the  morning  there  was  already  a  murmur  of  activity 
in  the  city,  of  the  masons'  mallets  and  the  movements  of  the 
labourers,  and  the  sound  of  the  great  stones  rolled  or  lifted 
into  place,  proceeding  from  every  quarter.  If  there  were  any 
of  Sanballat's  or  Tobiah's  belongings  in  that  large  chamber 
in  the  Temple  which  Eliashib  had  cleared  out  for  them  of 
the  stores  for  which  it  was  properly  intended — how  astonished 
must  they  have  been  to  see  Eliashib  himself  superintending 
the  building  of  his  portion  of  the  wall,  he  and  his  brethren 
with  their  robes  girded,  if  not  with  trowel  and  mallet  in  their 
own  hands,  yet,  no  doubt,  busy  in  the  humbler  occupation  of 
bringing  up  the  materials  and  pushing  forward  the  work. 

The  high  priest's  portion  was  from  the  sheep  gate, — 
that  by  which  animals  intended  for  sacrifice  were  brought 
up  to  the  Temple,  supposed  to  be  in  the  eastern  wall,  some- 
where near  and  above  the  pool  of  Bethesda,  where  the  north 
wall  of  the  Temple  enclosure  forms  an  angle — to  the  tower 
of  Meah  or  Hananeel,  unknown  to  modern  topography.  If 
it  was  the  wall  of  their  own  special  domain  which  they  forti- 
fied it  would  be  towards  the  south  that  they  would  labour, 
on  that  side  of  the  Temple  square  which  now  forms  part  of 
the  external  fortifications  :  next  to  the  priests  started  at  the 
same  morning  hour  the  men  of  Jericho  :  next  to  them  Zaccur 
the  son  of  Imri :  next  to  him  the  sons  of  Hassenaah  who 
built  the  fish  gate,  believed  to  be  in  the  north  wall  from 
which  opened  the  road  to  Galilee.  Whether  these  indica- 
tions are  to  be  trusted  or  not  it  is  difificult  to  make  out ;  the 
important  matter  is  that  more  than  thirty  groups  of  labourers, 
each  under  the  command  of  a  well-known  member  of  the 
community,  began  at  once  on  the  great  work :  each  pursuing 
his  neighbours  in  the  emulation  of  eager  and  patriotic  toil, 
not  a  matter  of  words  but  of  independent  and  cheerful 
manual  labour. 


NEHEMIAH  355 


Nothing  could  have  been  better  calculated  to  raise  the 
spirit  of  the  nation,  cowed  by  much  delay  and  mismanage- 
ment, by  the  harassing  treatment  to  which  they  were  sub- 
jected without,  and  the  want  of  any  strong  ruler  within,  than 
this  outburst  of  activity — the  very  air  quickening  round 
them  with  the  sound  of  the  tools,  the  shouts  and  outcries 
with  which  men  everywhere  relieve  the  strain  of  labour, 
the  bustling  of  the  overseers  new  to  such  work,  and,  no 
doubt,  full  of  anxiety  and  over^care.  No  one  was  left  to 
criticise  or  frame  objections  save  the  Tirshatha  making  his 
rounds,  stirring  every  set  of  builders  to  renewed  vigour, 
rewarding  with  a  quick  glance  of  satisfaction,  a  word  of 
praise  and  encouragement,  those  who  made  the  best  progress 
— especially  those  who  completed  their  own  share  and  were 
ready  to  help  others,  like  the  men  of  Tekoah,  who,  though 
their  nobles  stood  aloof,  repaired  not  only  their  own  portion, 
but  a  part  of  the  wall  on  the  other  side  near  Ophel,  which 
was  the  special  charge  of  the  Nethinims  or  servants  of  the 
Temple.  It  was  not  wonderful  that  the  ill-disposed  neigh- 
bours watching  outside  what  was  going  on  in  Jerusalem 
should  be  roused  to  a  frenzy  of  rage  and  opposition  when 
the  meaning  of  all  this  stir  burst  upon  them.  "  What  are  the 
people  about  ?  "  cried  Sanballat,  "  will  they  fortify  themselves  ? 
will  they  make  an  end  in  one  day }  will  they  revive  the 
stones  out  of  the  heaps  of  the  rubbish  which  are  burnt  ? " 
His  spiteful  outcry  gives  us  a  still  clearer  view  of  what  was 
going  on  ;  for  this,  no  doubt,  was  exactly  what  they  were 
doing,  raising  the  great  stones  to  which  the  burning  had 
done  little  harm  out  of  the  masses  of  broken  lime  and  frag- 
ments, and  placing  them  once  more  in  their  old  courses. 
Tobiah  the  Ammonite  was  more  spiteful  still.  "  That  which 
they  build,  if  a  fox  go  up,  he  shall  break  down  their  stone 
wall,"  cried  this  enraged  looker-on  whose  wish  was  father  to 
the  thought.  "  Hear,  O  our  God  : "  cries  Nehemiah  in  the 
fervour  of  his  indignant  earnestness,  "  for  we  are  despised  !  " 
But  the  rage  of  disappointed  malice  only  confirmed  the 
resolution  of  the  city.  "  So  built  we  the  wall  ;  for  the  people 
had  a  mind  to  work." 


356  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  part  hi 

When,  however,  Sanballat  saw  that  his  floutings  had  no 
effect  he  and  his  friends  seenn  to  have  held  a  consultation 
whether  it  would  not  be  a  wise  thing  to  make  a  raid  upon 
Jerusalem  before  the  fortifications  were  completed.  No 
doubt  there  were  plenty  of  spies  and  informers  on  both 
sides  ready  to  run  with  a  piece  of  news  from  one  to 
another ;  and  Nehemiah  was  not  long  in  hearing  of  the 
intended  movement  against  him.  The  builders  on  the  north 
side,  which  was  that  most  open  to  attack,  would  also  be  aware 
of  the  comings  and  goings,  the  bands  from  different  quarters 
drawing  together,  making  a  brave  show  upon  the  rising 
ground,  the  little  troops  of  horsemen  who  would  ride  down 
the  Kedron  valley,  and  point  out  to  each  other  with  flouts 
and  shouts  of  laughter  the  progress  of  the  work,  such  walls  ! 
as  a  fox  might  break  down.  The  wall  had  risen  to  about 
half  its  intended  height  by  this  time  round  the  entire  town, 
one  band  of  workmen  meeting  another :  and  the  labour 
was  severe.  There  was  "  much  rubbish  "  which,  no  doubt, 
crumbled  away  under  the  feet  of  the  builders  and  impeded 
every  step,  and  "  the  strength  of  the  bearers  of  burdens " 
began  to  give  way.  Then  the  Jews  who  had  been  called 
up  from  the  country  to  aid  in  the  work  were  full  of  alarm 
for  what  might  befall  them  as  they  returned  to  their  villages, 
especially  those  who  dwelt  upon  the  north  road  towards 
Samaria— an  alarm  increased  by  urgent  messages  from 
their  homes,  from  timorous  wives  or  parents  left  behind, 
begging  them  to  return  and  escape  from  danger. 

A  movement  of  discouragement  thus  again  came  like 
a  cloud  over  the  city,  and  all  might  have  been  abandoned 
and  the  ruin  left  as  before,  had  Nehemiah  been  less 
vigorous,  or  less  determined.  He  seized  the  pause  as  an 
opportunity  of  re-forming  the  method  of  the  labour,  and 
rousing  at  the  same  time  the  warlike  impulse  which  had 
begun  to  rise  with  the  prospect  of  independence.  He 
divided  the  working  parties  into  two  halves,  one  of  which 
carried  on  the  active  work  while  the  others  stood  behind, 
a  guard  ready  for  all  emergencies,  in  mail  coats,  fully  armed 
with  spears,  shields,  and   bows.      And   every  builder  girt  on 


CHAP.  II  NE  HE  MI  AH  359 

his  sword  before  he  took  up  the  peaceful  trowel,  and  every 
hodman  carried  a  weapon  :  and  the  Tirshatha  as  he  moved 
about  from  one  part  of  the  wall  to  another,  was  accompanied 
by  a  trumpeter  in  order  to  call  all  the  forces  at  once  to  a 
given  point  if  there  was  any  sign  of  attack.  We  may  be 
sure  that  active  Tirshatha  was  everywhere,  seeing  every- 
thing that  happened,  riding  about  up  and  down,  through 
half-built  street  and  encumbered  hollows  and  hillocks,  from 
the  city  of  David  to  the  northern  gate,  and  away  again 
to  that  door  of  the  king  on  the  east  side  towards  the  sun- 
rising,  by  which  only  princes  were  to  enter  in.  High  priest 
or  learned  scribe,  or  group  of  servants,  or  Shallum  with  his 
daughters,  or  that  Hananiah  who  was  the  son  of  an  apothe- 
cary, it  mattered  nothing  to  the  active  governor.  And  if 
there  was  any  movement  visible  in  the  encampment  on  the 
hill  where  the  Samaritans  lay  and  looked  on,  and  raged  and 
wondered,  it  is  clear  that  the  Tirshatha  was  there  with  his 
trumpeter  ready  to  sound  the  alarm,  so  that  every  man 
might  throw  down  his  trowel  or  his  hod  and  catch  up  his 
bow  or  draw  his  sword,  while  he  rushed  towards  the  centre 
of  action.  Never  was  a  patriotic  drama  more  strenuous, 
picturesque,  and  spirit-stirring,  with  such  mingled  sounds 
of  labour  and  war,  of  a  strong  race  on  the  alert,  valiantly 
and  cheerfully  contending  for  its  life.  The  men  were  in- 
spired at  once  with  patriotism  and  strong  indignation  and 
a  sense  that  this  was  the  crisis  upon  which  the  fate  of 
Jerusalem  hung. 

"  So  we  laboured  in  the  work  :  "  says  the  terse  and  strong 
historian,  "  and  half  of  them  held  the  spears  from  the  rising 
of  the  morning  till  the  stars  appeared.  So  neither  I,  nor 
my  brethren,  nor  my  servants,  nor  the  men  of  the  guard 
which  followed  me,  none  of  us  put  off  our  clothes."  Perhaps 
if  the  labourers  had  not  had  this  watchful  unwavering  band 
to  keep  them  at  their  work  the  .softness  of  use  and  wont 
might  have  made  the  tools  drop  from  their  hands,  and  per- 
suaded them  of  the  expediency  of  yielding  to  Sanballat  and 
thus  keeping  on  good  terms  with  their  neighbours.  But 
Nehemiah  behind,  who  never  rested,  lying  down  in  his  cloak 


36o  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  part  in 

to  snatch  an  hour's  sleep  Hke  any  camel-driver,  he  the  cup- 
bearer of  Artaxerxes  the  Eastern  autocrat,  used  to  perfumed 
baths  and  silken  robes  —  would  hear  of  no  submission. 
"  Remember  me,  O  my  God,  concerning  this,"  he  cries, 
when  he  winds  up  the  stirring  story.  He  was  a  man  of 
his  age,  not  disposed  to  make  light  of  his  work,  or  to  pre- 
tend that  he  did  not  expect  a  recompense  ;  but  few  men 
have  ever  worked  for  worldly  recompense  as  did  Nehcmiah, 
every  nerve  in  him  braced,  and  every  faculty  strengthened 
for  the  great  work. 

The  community  within  was  not  without  its  troubles  even 
while  this  work  went  on  ;  once  more  there  arose  that  cry  of 
usury,  of  the  pledge  retained  and  the  sons  and  daughters 
sold  into  bondage  which  was  the  evil  against  which  Israel 
had  been  so  specially  warned,  the  system  of  ruinous  loans 
upon  land  and  individual  belongings  which  is  the  pest  of 
every  rural  system  in  the  East — and  elsewhere.  The  Tir- 
shatha  assailed  this  evil,  too,  with  a  high  hand,  holding  out 
before  the  richer  portion  of  the  community,  "  the  nobles  and 
rulers,"  his  own  example.  "  We  after  our  ability,"  he  said, 
"  have  redeemed  our  brethren  the  Jews,  which  were  sold 
unto  the  heathen  ;  and  will  ye  even  sell  your  brethren  ? " 
The  Jews  in  Babylon  had  been  very  liberal.  Like  the 
modern  Jews  in  Europe,  they  had  sent  contributions  of  all 
kinds  both  for  the  Temple  and  the  maintenance  of  the  city, 
and,  no  doubt,  as  Nehemiah  says,  had  purchased  the  freedom 
of  many  of  the  captives  who  returned,  and  borne  their 
expenses  for  the  journey,  only  to  find  these  delivered  slaves 
robbing  the  unprovided  among  themselves.  "  Then  held 
they  their  peace,  and  found  nothing  to  answer,"  His 
remonstrance,  however,  was  effectual  for  the  time :  it  is 
evident  that  he  was  not  a  man  accustomed  to  be  resisted. 

"  Also  I  shook  my  lap,  and  said,  So  God  shake  out  every 
man  from  his  house,  and  from  his  labour,  that  performeth 
not  this  promise,  even  thus  be  he  shaken  out,  and  emptied. 
And  all  the  congregation  said.  Amen,  and  praised  the  Lord. 
And  the  people  did  according  to  this  promise."  Nehemiah 
again  quoted  his  own  practice  of  high  generosity  and  disin- 


NEHEMIAH  361 


terestedness,  as  an  example  for  the  future :  at  a  later  period, 
near  the  end  of  his  residence  at  Jerusalem  :  when  he  bade  the 
people  remember  how,  during  the  twelve  years  in  which  he 
held  the  office  of  governor — though  it  was  his  right  in  virtue 
of  his  office  to  receive  from  those  under  him  an  abundant 
revenue  fgr  his  support  and  that  of  his  household — he  had 
accepted  nothing.  Former  governors  had  been  chargeable 
to  the  people,  "  had  taken  bread  and  wine,  besides  forty 
shekels  of  silver  ;  yea,  even  their  servants  have  rule  over 
the  people :  but  so  did  not  I,  for  the  peace  of  God."  He 
describes  besides,  in  this  sometimes  almost  contemptuous 
summary,  how  he  had  held  a  sort  of  royal  state,  an  open 
table,  entertaining  like  a  king  a  hundred  and  fifty  of  the 
Jews  and  rulers  daily  "  besides  those  that  came  unto  us  from 
among  the  heathen  that  are  about  us,"  a  curious  addition. 
Thus  he  lived,  always  with  a  lofty  scorn  of  all  meanness, 
giving  freely,  accepting  nothing,  with  perhaps,  we  may  divine, 
a  certain  scorn  as  of  a  high  official  of  the  empire,  for  the 
pettiness  of  the  province,  notwithstanding  his  passionate 
devotion  to  the  holy  place  and  to  the  faith  of  his  fathers. 
Such  a  mingling  of  high  enthusiasm  for  a  great  object,  with 
an  impassioned  disdain  of  all  the  small  self-interests  that 
gather  about  it  and  the  unelevated  persons  who  carry  it  out, 
is  not  unusual  in  great  national  movements. 

We  need  not  dwell  upon  the  devices  of  Sanballat  and 
his  band  who  for  all  their  gibes  and  boasting  did  not 
venture  near  the  half-built  walls,  nor  had  the  courage  to 
assault  the  builders  with  that  keen  decisive  governor 
behind  them,  who  could  not  be  taken  by  surprise.  They 
endeavoured  to  inveigle  Nehemiah  out  of  the  city  on  the 
pretence  of  a  quite  unnecessary  conference ;  then  they 
accused  him  by  "  an  open  letter,"  intended  like  that  of 
Rabshakeh  in  Hezekiah's  time  for  the  ears  of  the  populace, 
of  wishing  to  make  himself  a  king,  and  threatened  to  report 
to  Artaxerxcs  that  he  was  a  rebel  against  the  imperial 
authority.  Finding,  however,  their  attempts  unsuccessful 
and  all  their  wiles  powerless  against  him,  they  suborned  one 
of  the  priests  to  persuade  him  to  take  refuge  in  the  Temple. 


362  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  tart  in 

"  For  they  will  come  to  slay  thee,  yea,  in  the  night  they 
will  come  to  slay  thee."  The  Tirshatha  confounded  this 
deceitful  priest  with  his  usual  stern  calm  and  that  indignant 
contempt  which  such  futile  temptations  deserved.  "  Should 
such  a  man  as  I  flee  ? "  he  asked  with  noble  scorn.  The 
insignificance  of  them  all  before  him,  both  enemies  and 
false  friends,  and  the  crowd  which  is  overawed  by  his 
greatness,  but  never  understands  him,  is  more  conspicuous 
in  his  simple  record  than  if  it  had  been  descanted  upon  by 
hosts  of  eulogists.  It  is  scarcely  in  nature  that  such  a 
man  should  not  despise  the  rabble  which  trembled  at  his 
look  and  promised  everything — yet  fell  back  into  its  un- 
patriotic alliances  as  soon  as  his  back  was  turned.  It  is 
the  never-failing  experience  of  the  rulers  of  men. 

But  in  the  meantime  he  accomplished  his  work  and 
reorganised  the  entire  society.  The  most  picturesque  and 
striking  ceremony  of  all,  that  with  which  Nehemiah  wound 
up  his  great  undertaking,  was  the  dedication  of  the  walls 
which  the  people  under  his  constant  stimulation  and  care 
had  built.  The  Levites  were  sought,  out  of  all  the 
villages  in  which  (in  the  intervals  of  their  service  at 
Jerusalem)  they  lived,  and  all  the  singers  and  musicians 
with  their  instruments.  "  Then  I  brought  up  the  princes  of 
Judah  upon  the  wall,"  says  the  governor,  "  and  appointed 
two  great  companies  of  them  that  gave  thanks,  whereof 
one  went  on  the  right  hand  upon  the  wall  .  .  .  and  the 
other  company  of  them  that  gave  thanks  went  over  against 
them,  and  I  after  them,  and  the  half  of  the  people."  Thus 
they  went,  winding  round  and  round  the  new-built  ramparts 
and  by  the  gates — each  with  its  great  lock  and  bar,  like 
those,  perhaps,  which  are  still  used  in  Damascus  and  other 
Syrian  cities,  a  bar  with  a  rudely  fitted  perpendicular  bolt 
with  iron  projections  falling  into  certain  perforations  in  it, 
which  rises  and  drops  by  means  of  a  wooden  key.  The 
procession  was  attended,  each  half  of  it  by  the  priests  with 
the  trumpets,  and  a  choir  of  singers,  singing,  perhaps,  those 
songs  of  the  pilgrims  with  which  the  long  and  dreary  way 
from   Babylon   had   been   lightened.      They  circled    the  city 


NEHEMIAH  363 


from  the  great  pools  of  Gihon  in  the  west,  and  the  stairs  of 
the  city  of  David,  that  bridge  that  traversed  the  Tyropoeon 
valley,  and  along  the  irregular  length  of  the  north  wall 
whence  they  could  see  the  tents  of  their  Samaritan  enemies 
on  the  hill  of  Samuel  or  Mount  Scopus,  so  often  there- 
after to  be  crowned  with  the  armies  of  more  formidable 
invaders  :  while  the  other  party  made  the  round  on  the 
southern  side  above  the  valley  of  Hinnom,  and  along  the 
front  of  the  Temple,  both  coming  together  with  whatever  en- 
signs of  triumph  they  might  carry,  with  the  glowing  colour  of 
Eastern  gala  dress,  and  the  white  robes  of  the  Levites,  and 
the  sound  of  the  singing  and  shouts  of  the  multitude,  until 
the  marching  lines  met  on  the  ramparts  of  the  Temple  wall, 
opposite  Olivet,  and  stood  awhile  to  make  their  thanksgiving, 
governor  and  princes  and  priests  and  people :  "  and  the 
singers  sang  loud  "  :  for  every  evil  prophecy  was  confounded 
and  every  fear  quenched  and  the  work  accomplished,  so 
that  all  the  world  might  see.  "  Also  that  day  they  offered 
great  sacrifices,  and  rejoiced  :  for  God  had  made  them 
rejoice  with  great  joy :  the  wives  also  and  the  children 
rejoiced  :  so  that  the  joy  of  Jerusalem  was  heard  even 
afar  off-." 

On  another  occasion,  probably  immediately  after  the 
completion  of  the  walls  but  before  that  ceremony,  before 
the  men  who  had  helped  in  the  building  withdrew  to 
their  villages,  they  gathered  "  as  one  man  in  the  court 
before  the  water-gate,"  and  a  request  was  made  to  Ezra 
the  scribe,  here  re-introduced  suddenly  into  the  history, 
that  he  would  bring  out  the  book  of  the  law  and  read  it 
to  the  people.  This  had  been  his  habit  according  to  his 
own  record  many  years  before,  and  either  he  had  been 
absent  during  the  troubled  period  before  Nehemiah's  ap- 
pearance in  Jerusalem,  or  engaged,  perhaps,  in  the  busi- 
ness belonging  to  his  special  profession  of  managing  the 
registers  and  all  the  laws  and  regulations  of  the  city,  since 
no  previous  mention  of  him  appears  in  the  story  of 
Nehemiah  :  yet  here  at  last  we  find  him  again,  when  the 
Tirshatha's  great  work  was  over,  coming  forward   into  the 


364 


THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION 


foreground  in  his  natural  position  as  an  interpreter  of  the 
law.  He  was  placed  in  a  "pulpit  of  wood  made  for  the 
purpose,"  such,  probably,  as  the  readers  of  the  Koran  occupy 
at  the  present  day  in  the  mosques  ;  and  round  him  stood  a 
band    of   priests,   giving    the    sanction    and    weight    of  their 


)FEN-AIK    I'ULl-IT    IN    THK    TEiVH'LK   ENCLOSURE 


presence  to  this  popular  expositor.  He  read  from  the 
morning  till  midday  "  before  the  men  and  women  and  all 
that  could  understand  ;  and  the  ears  of  all  the  people  were 
attentive  to  hear  the  law."  When  he  opened  the  book  all 
the  people  stood  up.  "  And  Ezra  blessed  the  Lord,  the 
great  God  :   and  all  the  people  answered   Amen,  Amen,  with 


CHAP,  n  NEHEMIAH  365 

lifting  up  their  hands :  and  they  bowed  their  heads,  and 
worshipped  the  Lord  with  their  faces  to  the  ground."  This 
scene  opens  upon  us  Hke  a  picture  in  the  ancient  usage  of 
instruction  still  familiar  in  the  East  ;  it  must  have  taken 
place  somewhere  about  the  spot  where  now  stands  the 
exquisite  open-air  pulpit  of  present  use  high  in  the  midst 
of  the  Temple  enclosure.  As  Ezra  read  and  paused  at 
the  end  of  some  difficult  passage,  the  priests  took  it  up  in 
turn  and  "  caused  the  people  to  understand,"  expounding 
and  explaining.  And  when  all  the  laws  were  read  in  their 
ears  which  they  had  transgressed  without,  it  is  possible,  in 
the  turmoil  of  the  time,  knowing  them,  great  compunction 
and  remorse  arose  in  their  hearts.  "  And  the  people  wept." 
But  the  Tirshatha,  wise  and  wholesome  man,  would  not  have 
his  triumph  spoiled.  He  was  a  peremptory  ruler,  strong  in 
his  ideas  of  work  and  recompense,  and  much  of  Solomon's 
opinion  that  there  was  a  time  for  everything.  He  desired 
them  to  postpone  their  penitence  to  another  day.  "  This  day 
is  holy  to  the  Lord  your  God  ;  mourn  not,  nor  weep.  Go 
your  way,  eat  the  fat,  and  drink  the  sweet,  and  send  portions 
unto  them  for  whom  nothing  is  prepared  :  for  this  day  is 
holy  unto  our  Lord  ;  neither  be  ye  sorry  :  for  the  joy  of 
Lord  is  your  strength." 

The  insistence  upon  this  point  is  curious  and  exhilarating. 
The  Tirshatha  would  have  none  of  their  lamentations,  even 
though  these  lamentations  were  for  sin  :  and  the  Levites 
were  set  to  "  still "  the  people,  repeating  that  exhortation 
"  Hold  your  peace,  neither  be  ye  .sorry."  In  the  end  the 
multitude  responded  to  this  repeated  injunction  and  ate  and 
drank  and  sent  portions,  and  made  merry, "  because  they  had 
understood  the  words  that  were  declared  unto  them  :"  indeed 
a  very  sufficient  reason  for  such  a  course. 

The  postponed  penitence  had  its  course  on  the  twenty- 
fourth  day  of  the  same  month,  when  a  fast  was  held  as 
solemn  as  the  thanksgiving,  and  the  people  put  off  all  their 
coloured  garments  and  put  themselves  in  sackcloth  with 
earth  upon  their  heads  and  "  separated  themselves  from  all 
strangers":  that  is,  no  doubt,  closed  the  Temple  gates  against 


366  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  part  in 

every  intruder,  and  stood  as  a  nation  confessing  their  na- 
tional sins  before  God.  The  Psalm  which  they  sang  is  a 
confession  of  their  shortcomings  and  of  the  grace  of  God 
which  had  restored  again  and  again  His  erring  people,  and 
their  services  ended  with  a  proposal,  in  which  is  the  very 
soul  of  the  determined  Nehemiah,  their  inspiration  in  all 
national  matters — that  a  solemn  covenant  and  promise  now 
and  for  ever  of  faithfulness  to  the  God  who  had  been  so 
gracious  to  them,  should  be  signed  and  sealed,  as  a  pledge 
that  they  would  err  no  more.  The  peremptory  optimist  who 
was  at  their  head  must'  surely  have  had  secret  misgivings  of 
the  everlasting  efficacy  of  such  a  covenant :  but  pious  men 
and  great  Reformers  of  far  later  date  than  Nehemiah  have 
tried  the  expedient  as  he  did,  undiscouraged  by  much  failure  : 
and  we  can  scarcely  help  thinking  of  Knox  and  his  followers 
and  of  the  Covenants  of  Scotland,  when  we  read  the  list  of 
"  those  who  sealed  "  and  "  entered  into  a  curse  and  into  an 
oath  to  walk  in  God's  law  "—that  is,  who  invoked  a  curse 
upon  their  own  heads  if  they  did  not  keep  that  vow.  No 
doubt  it  gave  a  solace  to  the  heart  of  Nehemiah  to  leave 
them  so  bound  against  all  further  possibilities  of  trans- 
gression— bound  by  seal  and  signature,  though  {<i\\  of  them, 
we  may  believe,  could  write — signs  of  a  bargain  which  would 
be,  it  was  to  be  hoped,  more  effectual  than  private  resolu- 
tion :  to  do  all  they  ought  to  do,  to  make  no  mixed 
marriages,  hold  no  market  on  the  Sabbath  day,  and  main- 
tain the  ordinances  of  the  Temple,  the  sacrifices  and  the 
tithes,  the  first-fruits  and  offerings.  When  these  vows  were 
put  upon  parchment  and  laid  up  in  the  holy  place,  was  not 
all  done  that  could  be  done  to  bind  a  people  at  once  so 
fickle  and  so  strange  ? 

But  whether  the  Tirshatha  remained  to  govern  the  city, 
or  whether  he  went  back  to  pour  out  again  the  wine  of 
Artaxerxes,  or  to  be  promoted  after  all  his  labours  to  some 
more  important  post  in  the  imperial  government,  we  know 
nothing.  The  record  ends  here  so  far  as  the  Scripture 
history  is  concerned,  leaving  Jerusalem  in  outward  peace, 
but  as  yet   little  more  than  a  ghost  of  herself,  with  elaborate 


NEHEMIAH  .  367 


laws,  and  a  hierarchy  carefully  arranged,  yet  but  half 
populated,  with  a  few  scattered  villages  alone  to  keep  up  her 
prestige  and  her  claim  to  be  considered  among  the  nations. 
The  stronghold,  however,  was  again  safe  from  all  but 
imperial  arms,  the  sanctuary  cleansed,  the  race  for  once 
convinced  that  apart  from  God  and  his  Divine  protection 
they  had  no  standing  or  security  in  the  world. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE    MACCABEES 

Nothing  can  be  more  remarkable  than  the  difference  we 
find  in  this  ancient  history  when  the  guiding  thread  of 
Scripture  fails.  The  Apocryphal  books  are  extremely 
interesting  and  full  of  graphic  details,  but  the  difference 
between  them  and  the  canonical  books  is  very  much  like 
that  which  exists  between  Shakespeare  and  the  other 
dramatists  of  the  Elizabethan  age.  Many  of  these  are 
great  writers  taken  by  themselves,  but  when  they  arc  placed 
beside  our  supreme  poet  they  pale  and  fade  like  the  stars  at 
midday. 

"Ye  common  people  of  the  sky, 
What  are  ye  when  the  moon  is  nigh  ? " 

The  difference  is  much  of  the  same  kind  when  we  turn 
to  the  history  of  the  Maccabees  after  the  stories  of  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah.  The  books  of  Kings  and  Chronicles  are  full 
of  curt  passages,  records  from  which  the  life  has  well-nigh 
gone,  but  these  are  redeemed  by  passages  glowing  with  the 
movement  and  force  of  existence,  with  features  of  individual 
life  which  nothing  can  make  antiquated,  which  are  as  true  to 
human  nature  now  as  they  were  when  the  events  recorded 
came  to  pass.  In  none  of  them  do  we  lose  our  way,  nor  do 
our  heads  spin  round  as  in  the  fightings  of  the  Maccabees  : 
— in  none  of  them  does  the  curious  mixture  of  pure  legend 
show  itself  in  mingled  extravagance  and  subtilty,  as  in  some 
of  the  other  Apocryphal  books.      The  narrative  of  Esdras,  for 


THE  MACCABEES  369 


example,  the  amplified  and  legendary  tale  of  which  the 
book  of  Ezra  is  the  text,  is  in  many  parts  a  captivating 
story.  Its  account  of  the  manner  in  which  the  distresses  of 
the  Jews  were  brought  before  King  Darius  is  like  a  chapter 
out  of  the  Arabian  Nights.  The  three  young  men  in  the  ante- 
chamber, and  their  emulation  as  to  who  shall  write  the 
wisest  sentence,  and  the  recompense  that  shall  be  given  him  : 
the  ready  acquiescence  of  the  monarch  in  this  competition  : 
the  success  of  the  third  competitor  and  his  statement  of  the 
boon  he  desires,  which  is  not  to  be  clothed  in  purple  and  to 
sleep  upon  a  couch  of  gold,  or  even  to  sit  next  to  Darius  for 
his  wisdom  and  to  be  called  the  king's  cousin,  but  that 
Jerusalem  may  be  succoured  and  built  up  :  make  such  a 
tale  as  Scheherezade  might  have  told  to  her  Sultan.  But 
then  the  thread  of  the  story  melts  away  and  we  know  no 
more  of  the  three  young  men  (one  of  them  vaguely  called 
Zorobabel  as  if  in  some  confusion  of  identity  with  thq  Jewish 
prince  of  Cyrus's  days)  nor  hear  of  any  connection  they  had 
with  that  extremely  real,  succinct,  and  veritable  personage — 
Ezra  the  scribe,  whose  account  of  himself  and  his  mission  is 
so  genuine  and  satisfactory.  The  chronology  of  Scripture  is 
often  difficult,  but  that  of  the  Apocryphal  books  is  impossible. 
It  is  Nebuchadnezzar's  captain  whose  head  Judith  carries  in 
her  bag,  notwithstanding  that  her  time  is  after  the  captivity 
and  long  after  the  very  empire  of  that  monarch  has  been 
overthrown.  De  Bracy's  famous  description  in  Ivanhoc  of 
how  the  tribe  of  Benjamin  in  their  difficulties  sought  counsel 
of  the  Pope  is  scarcely  more  wildly  astray.  These  are 
examples  of  how  a  -story  is  told  which  has  gone  from  one 
mouth  to  another  through  a  few  hundred  years.  The  critics 
who  consider  this  to  be  the  way  in  which  the  whole 
Scriptural  record  was  built  up  have  not  apparently  re- 
marked this  real  illustration  of  what  the  outcome  is  in  such 
a  case. 

The  narrative  of  the  Maccabees,  though  confused,  is  a 
more  solid  piece  of  history.  By  the  time  it  was  written 
the  world  had  attained  the  historical  age,  and  there 
are   other  records    with  which   to   compare   and    correct  it. 

2  B 


370  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  tart  in 

It  is  another  chapter  of  the  long-continued,  little-varying 
story,  save  that  in  this,  as  in  a  secular  chronicle,  the  connec- 
tion between  the  sins  of  the  people  and  their  punishment  is 
not  insisted  upon,  and  the  political  influence  of  situation  and 
character  is  more  clearly  revealed.  Jerusalem  is  a  little 
realm  of  marked  and  peculiar  institutions,  many  of  which 
offend  and  irritate  her  neighbours,  as  a  profession  of  superior 
sanctity  or  enlightenment  invariably  does  offend  and  irritate. 
These  neighbours  are  always  asking  the  world  and  each 
other.  What  is  she,  this  little  mountain  city,  to  make  so 
much  commotion  about  her  Temple,  her  rites,  her  claim  to  be 
more  wise  than  other  people,  her  Sabbaths,  forsooth,  as  if 
she  were  more  hard  worked  on  the  other  six  days  of  the 
week,  or  had  more  to  show  for  her  labour,  than  her 
neighbours  ? 

On  the  other  hand,  the  little  country  of  Judea,  the 
little  obstinate  wealthy  town  with  her  Temple,  still  more 
or  less  lined  and  furnished  with  gold,  and  her  precious 
vessels,  always  a  tempting  prey,  lay  right  in  the  way  be- 
tween two  strong  and  warlike  powers,  the  empire  of  Egypt 
on  the  one  hand,  the  northern  empire  once  of  Senna- 
cherib, once  of  Cyrus,  once  of  Alexander,  on  the  other, 
between  which  there  was  a  continual  struggle.  Nothing 
could  be  more  dangerous  than  such  a  position,  especially  as 
it  would  seem  through  all  her  history  that  Jerusalem  was 
most  apt  to  take  the  Egyptian  side,  where  a  race  ancient 
and  changeless  as  her  own  had  stood  against  many  incursions 
of  the  continually  modified  and  altered  empire  of  the  north  : 
until  altered  itself  by  that  partition  6f  the  ancient  world 
which  followed  the  conquests  of  the  Greeks.  There  is,  how- 
ever, a  special  bitterness  in  the  many  wars  of  devastation 
which  swept  over  the  devoted  city,  which  adds  something 
more  than  the  mere  horrors  of  invasion,  terrible  as  these 
-  were,  to  her  tragic  history.  The  continual  insults  to  her 
religion,  the  swine  sacrificed  on  the  altar,  the  overthrow  of 
all  her  characteristic  customs,  done  with  a  fury  and  ferocity 
which  seem  special  to  this  place  alone,  are  very  remarkable. 
One  would  imagine  that  the  very  existence  of  such  a  strong- 


THE  MACCABEES  371 


hold  of  national  worship  folded  in  the  hills  was  an  affront 
and  offence  to  the  world  about.  They  left  the  plains 
on  either  side,  to  crush  that  sentiment  of  freedom,  of  indi- 
viduality, and  what  was  still  more,  of  unbroken  immemorial 
faith,  which  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  way. 

At  last  the  indignities  and  insults  of  their  conquerors 
roused  the  spirit  of  the  victims,  and  for  the  first  time  in 
their  history  the  Jews  rose  for  their  city  and  won  it  back. 
On  other  occasions  they  had  been  delivered  by  miraculous 
interposition,  chiefly  by  the  withdrawal  of  their  enemies — 
for  their  struggle  had  been  defensive  only,  and  the  issue  of 
a  siege  is  always  destruction  when  there  are  forces  enough 
to  blockade  and  shut  it  up  completely.  In  the  case 
of  the  Maccabees  they  had  the  advantage  of  being  outside 
the  walls,  with  the  mountains  behind  them  to  retire  to,  and 
room  to  attack  as  well  as  to  defend.  A  valiant  family  of 
priestly  race,  father  and  five  sons,  inhabiting  the  village  of 
Modin  near  Bethel,  were  the  leaders  and  inspirers  of  this  great 
patriotic  movement  ;  Matthias,  or  Mattathias,  the  father  of 
Judas  Maccabeus,  "  of  the  sons  of  Joarib,"  was  the  man 
who  struck  the  first  blow.  According  to  the  narrative 
in  the  book  of  Maccabees  the  commissioner  of  Antiochus 
had  reached  this  little  town  among  the  hills  with  authority 
to  enforce  the  submission  of  the  villagers  according  to 
the  method  pursued  afterwards  in  the  persecutions  of  the 
Christians  at  Rome,  by  requiring  them  to  sacrifice  "  accord- 
ing to  the  king's  commandment "  upon  an  idolatrous 
altar :  and  probably  the  officers  who  had  conquered  Jeru- 
salem anticipated  no  difficulty  with  this  petty  town.  They 
called  upon  Matthias  first  as  "  an  honourable  and  great 
man  "  to  perform  the  necessary  test  of  obedience.  It  is 
quite  possible  that  these  officials  might  be  prepared  for  some 
show  of  reluctance  and  opposition,  for  they  seem  to  have 
stood  parleying  with  the  priest  long  enough  to  permit  some 
sycophant  eager  to  curry  favour  to  rush  in  before  and  light 
the  incense,  or  kill  the  victim.  Matthias  turned  upon  the 
apostate  with  righteous  indignation  :  "  he  was  inflamed  with 
zeal  and  his  reins  trembled,  neither  could  he  forbear  to  show 


372  THE  REl'URN  AND  RESTORATION  part  iii 

his  anger  according  to  judgment :  wherefore  he  ran  and  slew 
him  upon  the  altar."  This  sudden  outburst  of  noble  wrath 
must  have  roused  the  spirit  of  the  multitude,  for  it  is  evident 
that  the  proselytising  party  could  make  no  stand  against  the 
father  and  his  sons  — "  Also  the  king's  commissioner  who 
compelled  men  to  sacrifice  he  killed,  and  the  altar  he  pulled 
down." 

The  sudden  flame  of  an  unexpected  rebellion  so 
swift  and  decisive  must  have  ended  in  the  destruction  or 
flight  of  the  strangers  :  and  henceforward  the  die  was  cast  for 
Matthias  and  his  family.  He  "  cried  throughout  the  city  with 
a  loud  voice,  saying,  Whosoever  is  zealous  of  the  law  and 
maintaineth  the  covenant,  let  him  follow  me."  After  the 
degradation  and  despair  which  we  have  seen  to  steal  over 
the  Jewish  race  in  the  later  years  of  her  unfaithful  kings  : 
after  the  downheartedness  of  the  captivity ;  this  sudden 
trumpet  voice  recalls  the  heroes  of  Judah,  the  mighty  men 
of  valour,  David  and  his  captains,  stout  Joab  who  feared  no 
face  of  man.  They  had  to  form  their  band  and  flee  to  the 
mountains  forthwith,  leaving  their  little  abandoned  town  to  the 
mercy  of  the  invaders  :  but  when  they  were  protected  by  the 
invulnerable  hills  the  party  of  the  patriots  grew  daily.  In- 
tolerable oppression  had  at  last  roused  beyond  endurance  a  too 
long-suffering  race.  .  Some,  we  are  told,  not  brave  enough 
for  open  resistance,  fled  to  the  wilderness  hoping  to  be  safe 
there,  but  were  overtaken  by  an  expedition  from  Jerusalem 
who  assailed  them  on  the  Sabbath  day.  The  multitude, 
unwarlike,  unofficered  probably,  clinging  with  heroic  weak- 
ness to  their  rule,  would  not  fight  on  that  holy  day,  and 
were  massacred  like  sheep.  "They  answered  them  not, 
neither  cast  they  a  stone  at  them,  nor  stopped  the  places 
where  they  lay  hid,  but  said.  Let  us  die  in  our  innocency  : 
heaven  and  earth  shall  testify  for  us  that  ye  put  us  to 
death  wrongfully."  "  A  thousand  souls  of  men,"  whole 
families,  including  wives  and  children  (who  probably  made 
resistance  impossible),  thus  perished  without  striking  a 
blow. 

These   meek   religious   martyrs,   however,   raised    such   a 


THE  MACCABEES  373 


storm  in  Judah  as  carried  all  barriers  away.  "  When 
Mattathias  and  his  friends  understood  thereof  they  mourned 
for  them  right  sore.  And  one  of  them  said  to  another,  If  we 
all  do  as  our  brethren  have  done,  and  fight  not  for  our  lives 
and  laws  against  the  heathen,  they  will  now  quickly  root  us 
out  of  the  earth.  At  that  time  they  decreed  saying,  Who- 
soever shall  come  to  make  battle  with  us  on  the  Sabbath 
day  we  will  fight  against  him  :  neither  will  we  die  all  as  our 
brethren  that  were  murdered  in  the  secret  places."  This 
is  the  first  appearance,  in  our  knowledge  of  the  Jews,  of  the 
new  kind  of  idolatry  which  had  succeeded  in  their  strange 
and  perverse  minds  the  dominion  of  idols.  They  had  now 
seized  upon  their  law  with  all  its  severe  conditions  and  put 
that  in  the  place  of  God.  The  reign  of  that  tremendous 
formalism  which  came  to  a  climax  in  the  time  of  our  Lord, 
when  a  breach  of  the  Sabbath  was  a  capital  crime  and 
the  husks  and  outside  regulations  of  devotion  had  taken  the 
place  of  the  spirit,  is  thus  introduced  with  pathetic  circum- 
stances which  silence  even  the  impatience  of  the  bystander 
looking  on  at  so  unnecessary  a  sacrifice.  But  Matthias  was 
a  man  of  sense,  it  is  evident,  as  well  as  a  hero,  and  able  to 
interpret  according  to  the  spirit,  not  exclusively  by  the  letter, 
the  oracles  of  God.  The  book  of  Maccabees,  however,  is 
full  of  instances  of  this  growing  dominion  of  the  external 
law,  and  also  of  supernatural  appearances  and  prodigies 
altogether  unknown  to  the  sober  pages  of  authentic  Scrip- 
ture, and  affording  an  excellent  example  of  what  such  a 
record  is  when  compiled  from  primitive  documents,  as  this 
chronicle  acknowledges  itself  to  be.  Young  men  in  shining 
armour,  upon  radiant  steeds  of  heaven,  come  forth  to  head 
the  Jewish  armies,  and  angels  paralyse  the  impious  invader 
when  he  lays  hands  upon  the  treasure  of  the  Temple.  Such 
occurrences  never  take  place  in  the  authentic  record,  save  in 
its  very  earliest  pages :  and  even  then  the  mysterious 
"  Captain  of  the  Lord's  host,"  who  appears  to  Joshua,  is  a 
veiled  and  mystic  figure  quite  unknown  to  the  crowd. 
Neither  the  ancient  kings  of  Judah  nor  strenuous  Nehemiah 
on  the  city  wall  had  any  such  direct  succours  from  the  skies. 


374  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  part  hi 

It  is  strange  to  find  ourselves,  in  this  confused  history  of 
a  disturbed  country  full  of  perpetual  wars,  suddenly  brought 
face  to  face  with  classical  names  and  the  materials  of  a  wider- 
spreading  world  history,  revealing  the  extraordinary  develop- 
ment which  had  taken  place  since  the  wars  of  the  Jews  with 
the  little  cluster  of  Canaanitish  nations,  when  Damascus  and 
then  Nineveh  and  then  Babylon  were  the  homes  of  the 
conquerors,  and  Greeks  and  Romans  were  unknown. 
Lysimachus,  Nicanor,  Gorgias,  are  the  titles  of  the  opposing 
generals,  Menelaus  is  an  apostate  priest,  "  Quintus  Memmius 
and  Titus  Manlius,  ambassadors  of  the  Romans,"  send  letters 
to  the  Jews.  All  is  changed  from  the  old  world,  yet 
there  is  little  change  in  the  one  obstinate  self-contained 
people  which  holds  the  central  place,  though  visibly  sur- 
rounded by  supernatural  help  as  it  never  was  in  the  older 
authentic  days. 

For  the  same  thing  had  again  happened  to  Jerusalem 
which  happened  to  her  before.  The  city  "  lay  void  as  a 
wilderness,  the  sanctuary  was  trodden  down,  and  aliens  kept 
the  stronghold  :  the  heathen  had  their  habitation  in  the 
place  :  and  joy  was  taken  from  Jacob,  and  the  pipe  with  the 
harp  ceased."  But  the  people  were  no  longer  captive 
nor  languishing  terrified  in  scattered  villages.  They 
ranged  the  country  outside  as  David's  bands  did,  under 
their  bold  leader  "  who  was  like  a  lion,"  always  with  their  eyes 
fixed  upon  the  deserted  domes  and  towers,  the  silent  and 
desolate  city  over  which  the  flag  of  the  conqueror  waved 
from  the  heights  of  Zion.  Other  cities  have  been  dear,  but 
none  so  prized,  so  sacred,  as  this.  To  think  of  the  abomina- 
tion of  desolation  in  those  deserted  courts  and  profaned 
sanctuaries  was  anguish  to  every  Jew.  They  roamed  the 
country  round,  always  with  longing  looks  reverting  to  their 
holy  and  beautiful  place  :  lying  in  wait  for  every  advantage, 
rushing  down  from  their  mountains  upon  the  unexpecting 
army  of  their  adversaries  when  the  other  half  of  it  had 
become  involved  in  those  rocky  gorges  in  pursuit  of  them  : 
too  rapid  to  await  attack,  taking  everywhere  the  offensive, 
in  night  surprises  and  sudden  assaults,  a  handful  of  desperate 


CHAP.  Ill  THE  MACCABEES  375 

men  rushing  at  the  throat  of  an  astonished  host  and  by  their 
daring  dispersing  it  on  every  side.  Their  watchword  between 
themselves  was  at  one  time  "  The  help  of  God,"  and  at  another 
"  The  victory  of  God."  The  Lord  of  Hosts  was  their  leader, 
and  their  whole  trust  in  Him,  so  that  no  man  took  thought 
of  the  odds  against  him.  "  They  had  neither  armour  nor 
swords  to  their  minds  " :  but  "  the  camp  of  the  heathen  was 
strong  and  well  harnessed,  and  compassed  round  about  by 
horsemen :  and  these  were  expert  in  war,"  while  as  for  the  Jews, 
their  leaders  were  priests,  and  many  Levitcs  were,  no  doubt, 
in  their  ranks.  But  what  did  that  matter  so  long  as  God 
was  with  them  ?  When  the  trumpets  sounded  they  flung 
themselves  headlong  like  lions  on  their  prey.  In  the  great 
army  which  Lysias  led  against  them  were  a  number  of 
merchants  with  "  silver  and  gold  very  much  "  who  had  come 
into  the  camp  "  to  buj^  the  children  of  Israel  for  slaves,"  and 
whose  flight,  when  Lysias  himself  turned  tail,  with  their 
money-bags,  it  must  have  been  good  to  see.  Let  us  hope 
that  the  Hebrew  warriors  overtook  some  of  those  intending 
purchasers  and  captured  the  money  which  was  provided  to 
secure  bargains  of  their  flesh  and  blood. 

The  camp  of  the  Greeks  was  at  Emmaus,  which,  as  we 
all  know,  was  but  threescore  furlongs  from  Jerusalem — and 
when  the  victorious  Jews,  having  encountered  in  succession 
the  main  army,  which  did  not  look  for  any  such  attack, 
and  the  army  of  Gorgias  coming  back,  baffled  and  weary, 
from  its  expedition  to  the  mountains  in  search  of  them  : 
found  themselves  masters  of  the  deserted  camp  with  all  its 
treasures  "  and  gold  and  much  silver  and  blue  silk  and 
purple  of  the  sea  and  great  riches  " — they  did  not  linger 
among  the  spoil,  valuable  to  them  as  that  must  have  been. 
"  Then  said  Judas  and  his  brethren.  Behold  our  enemies  are 
discomfited  :  let  us  go  up  to  cleanse  and  dedicate  the 
sanctuary."  They  ascended  accordingly,  unmolested,  and 
took  possession  of  the  deserted  city.  The  little  garrison 
in  the  citadel  were  possibly  restrained  by  regard  for  their 
own  safety  from  making  any  hostile  demonstrations  at  the 
sight   of  those    Hebrew   bands   which   they  were   evidently 


376  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  part  hi 

powerless  to  resist.  The  Maccabees  found  not  only  the 
sanctuary  desolate  as  they  were  aware,  but  "  shrubs  growing 
in  the  courts  as  in  a  forest,"  a  sign  of  neglect  which  would 
seem  to  have  gone  to  their  hearts.  (The  Temple  enclosure 
now  is  more  than  half  covered  with  grass,  and  with  many 
fine  trees,  some  of  which  look  as  if  they  might  have 
survived  the  vicissitudes  of  many  centuries.)  This  forlorn 
condition  of  the  precincts  called  forth  great  lamenta- 
tions, rending  of  clothes  and  every  sign  of  horror  and 
consternation.  "  They  fell  down  flat  upon  their  face, 
and  blew  an  alarm  with  the  trumpets,  and  cried  toward 
heaven."  These  expressions  bring  forcibly  and  vividly 
before  us  the  character  of  the  rude  and  simple  army, 
taken  from  the  plough  and  the  field,  with  their  harsh 
trumpets  for  all  music,  and  their  minds  on  fire  with  the  true 
passion  of  religion  and  patriotism. 

The  Temple,  however,  seems,  though  profaned,  to  have 
been  left  intact,  only  the  priests'  chambers  being  pulled  down. 
It  was  "  with  songs  and  citherns  and  harps  and  cymbals," 
and  with  the  old  immemorial  Psalm  of  adoration  to  the 
Lord  "  for  he  is  good  :  for  his  mercy  endureth  for  ever," 
that  in  a  little  while  the  dedication  of  the  newly-built  altar 
was  celebrated  and  all  the  rites  of  sacred  worship,  the 
sacrifice  and  the  incense,  re-established,  the  mysterious  veil 
hung  up  again  with  awe  between  the  Holy  of  holies  and 
the  gaze  of  the  multitude.  No  doubt  the  singers  found 
their  instruments  piled  among  the  ruins  in  some  half- 
destroyed  chamber,  or  dedicated  the  lutes  in  the  Greek 
tents  to  a  better  use  than  that  of  those  songs  of  love  and 
wine  which  were  the  solace  of  their  enemies.  The  sequence 
of  events  is  one  which  wc  have  already  seen  repeated  over 
and  over  again  in  the  history  of  Jerusalem.  The  Temple 
is  profaned,  it  is  desecrated,  ruined,  robbed,  again  and 
again  in  the  troublous  story  :  but  we  have  but  to  turn  the 
page  to  find  the  tide  of  power  turned,  the  holy  place 
recovered,  the  work  of  purification  instantly  recommenced, 
the  altars  rebuilt,  every  piece  of  spoil  or  ornament  that  is 
worthy   of  such    high    use    dedicated    to    the    decoration    of 


THE  MACCABEES  377 


that  shrine  at  once  of  religion  and  of  race.  "  They 
decked  also  all  the  forefront  of  the  Temple  with  crowns 
of  gold  and  with  shields " — the  personal  ornaments  and 
works  of  art  which  they  had  collected  from  the  deserted 
camp.  Thus  had  it  been  done  for  centuries  past  ;  during 
which  the  kingdom  had  been  cut  to  pieces,  conquered,  beaten, 
the  people  led  into  captivity  ;  yet  always  returning  to  regain 
its  standing  upon  the  sacred  mount,  to  light  again  its 
sacrificial  fires  :  and  when  it  could  no  longer  line  its  holy 
house  with  gold,  at  least  to  hang  up  the  shining  shields, 
the  golden  circlets  won  from  the  enemy,  upon  gate  and 
wall  :  while  the  song  of  priests  and  people  once  more 
and  again  and  yet  again  rang  high  unto  heaven — 

For  his  mercy  endureth  for  ever. 

It  is  curious  to  find,  however,  how  completely  the  royal 
element  had  been  eliminated  out  of  this  extraordinary  and 
always  characteristic  people.  It  would  seem  as  if  Zerubbabel 
had  been  the  last  of  his  race  who  occupied  any  post  of 
authority.  He  was  not,  perhaps,  himself  a  man  of  strong 
individuality,  for  the  impression  he  makes  upon  the  record  is 
very  faint,  and  his  very  name  fades  away  in  the  midst  of  the 
dissensions  and  controversies  of  the  restored  captivity.  He 
had  children,  but  they  do  not  seem  to  have  succeeded  to  any 
place  of  authority.  No  doubt  it  would  have  been  dangerous 
for  a  people  restored  by  the  unexpected  favour  of  the  Persian 
emperors  to  have  set  up  their  little  royalty  again  in  the  face 
of  Cyrus  and  Cambyses — and  the  race  of  David  had  sunk,  it 
would  seem,  under  the  level  of  what  is  required  for  a  ruler 
even  in  a  subordinate  position.  The  race  of  Levi  had  sur- 
vived in  greater  strength.  The  families  of  the  high  priests 
could  not  lose  their  sacred  right  of  domination  descended  to 
them  from  far  antiquity — long  before  kings  were  thought  of 
and  from  the  direct  appointment  of  God.  Far  more  than 
the  scattered  and  impoverished  house  of  David  had  they 
retained  their  traditions  and  their  power :  and  while  the 
family  of  Zerubbabel  sinks  into  the  rank  of  private  persons 
that  of  his    colleague  the   priest   goes  on   in   unquestioned 


378  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  part  hi 

authority.  Eliashib,  though  not  blameless  in  the  matter  of 
life  and  discipline,  had  succeeded  Jeshua  in  Ezra's  time,  while 
the  sons  of  Zerubbabel  had  gone  back  to  the  original 
pastures  at  Bethlehem,  from  which  David  had  been  taken  to 
be  made  a  king.  And  when  we  come  to  the  time  of  the 
Maccabees  it  is  in  a  priestly  family  that  the  hero,  or  rather 
heroes,  father  and  sons  emulating  each  other  in  valour  and 
patriotism — and  the  only  real  successor  of  the  chivalrous 
shepherd  of  Bethlehem,  Judas  the  son  of  Matthias,  is  found. 
The  supreme  authority  remained  in  the  hands  of  this 
Levitical  family  till  it  was  transmitted  to  those  of  another 
hero  of  romance,  the  great  triumphant  and  conquering 
Herod,  who  was  not  even  a  Jew  at  all.  For  by  that  time 
the  purposes  of  God  so  long  promised  and  determined  were 
working  towards  the  birth  on  earth  of  that  Son  of  David, 
the  Seed  of  the  woman,  in  whom  priesthood  and  kinghood 
were  combined,  and  whose  appearance  wound  up  the  whole 
economy  of  the  ancient  world,  and  made  further  returnings 
from  captivity,  further  restorations  of  Temple  and  sacrifice, 
of  no  need  nor  avail.  The  fact  is  full  of  awe  and  instruction 
that,  after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  Titus,  no  attempt 
was  made  on  the  part  of  the  Jews  to  restore  the  sanctuary 
which  had  been  the  inspiration  and  ruling  thought  of  all- 
the  previous  generations.  It  had  been  as  completely 
ruined  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  as  deeply  desecrated  by  Antio- 
chus,  not  to  speak  of  the  continual  offences  against  it 
of  its  own  degenerate  kings.  It  had  been  rebuilt,  re- 
consecrated, the  interrupted  worship  restored  more  times 
than  it  is  easy  to  reckon.  But  after  the  great  and  wonder- 
ful tragedy  which  sums  up  its  story,  neither  priest  nor 
hero,  neither  patriot  nor  poet,  ever  stirred  up  those  dry 
bones  again. 

In  the  meantime,  however,  the  family  of  the  Maccabees 
had  a  hard  fighting  life,  recovering  and  losing  again  in 
succession  almost  every  inch  of  their  country,  although  never 
altogether  losing  their  hold  of  Jerusalem.  Once  they  were 
shut  up  in  the  sanctuary  itself  which  had  independent  forti- 
fications of  its  own,  within  the  outer  walls,  and  held  for  their 


THE  MACCABEES  379 


lives  upon  that  little  platform,  until  dangers  breaking  out  in 
other  parts  of  the  empire  made  it  policy  on  the  part  of  the 
Greeks  to  make  peace  with  these  indomitable  patriots. 
Chief  after  chief  of  the  heroic  family  died  in  battle,  but  was 
followed  duly  by  his  heir  in  a  succession  of  strong  and 
devoted  men  unknown  before  in  the  annals  of  Israel.  Judas, 
Jonathan,  Simon,  and  John  called  Hyrcanus,  carried  on  the 
noble  strain,  never  relaxing  the  struggle,  making  alliances 
like  kings,  aiding  their  allies  from  time  to  time  with  a 
Hebrew  contingent  which  seems  to  have  struck  terror 
everywhere  by  its  prowess  and  valour. 

At  the  end  the  great  spirit  of  the  race  dropped,  and 
the  old  too-well-known  course  of  conspiracies  and  internal 
divisions  replaced  the  shoulder-to-shoulder  struggle  of  the 
devoted  and  united  family.  Then  Hyrcanus,  the  second 
of  the  name,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Idumean  (in 
the  olden  days  he  would  have  been  called  the  Edomite) 
Antipater,  the  father  of  the  great  Herod.  During  this  later 
period  we  find  ourselves  suddenly  brought  into  familiar 
company,  among  well-known  names,  Seleucus,  Ptolemy, 
Antony  and  Cleopatra,  Caesar  and  Pompey.  The  latter 
of  these  generals  took  again  the  often -conquered  city. 
"  He  found  the  walls  from  their  height  of  almost  impreg- 
nable strength  with  a  frightful  ravine  in  front  of  them,"  says 
Josephus,  "  while  within  this  the  Temple  was  so  strongly 
fortified  that  even  after  the  capture  of  the  town  it  could 
afford  a  second  refuge."  This  had  already  been  the  case  as 
we  have  seen  ;  and  was  to  be  so  still  more  remarkably  in 
the  final  and  terrible  struggle  with  Titus.  It  is  difficult, 
however,  now  to  understand  what  is  meant  by  a  ravine 
on  the  north  side  of  the  city,  the  country  there  being  com- 
paratively level,  with  nothing  more  than  the  gentlest  undula- 
tions between  it  and  the  hills.  "  The  prodigious  depth  of 
the  ravine,"  which  was  filled  up  by  Pompey's  soldiers,  is  strange 
to  hear  of;  and  it  is  a  striking  detail  that  it  was  during 
the  Jewish  Sabbath  when  the  Jews  "  refrain  their  hands 
from  every  work  "  that  he  erected  a  shelter  under  which  his 
troops  could  work   while  filling    up    that  fosse  —  and   that 


38o  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  part  in 

during  this  siege  the  smoke  of  the  morning  and  evening 
sacrifice  rose  up  without  interruption  to  heaven,  notwith- 
standing the  showers  of  darts  directed  upon  the  sanctuary. 
The  priests,  Josephus  informs  us,  continued  even  when  the 
Roman  army  came  pouring  in  "  to  carry  forward  the  sacred 
services,  and  were  slaughtered  while  presenting  libations  and 
burning  incense."  The  Roman  general  must  have  been 
impressed  by  that  wonderful  sight ;  for  though  he  went  over 
all  the  sacred  places  thus  purified  with  the  life-blood  of  the 
ministrants  at  the  altar,  and  with  the  keen  curiosity  of  his 
race  put  aside  even  the  mysterious  veil  and  went  into  the 
Holy  of  holies — he  carried  nothing  away,  and  did  no  harm 
to  that  strangely  beloved  and  defended  shrine.  He  restored 
Hyrcanus  to  be  chief  priest,  and  taking  from  the  Jews  the 
cities  they  had  seized  in  better  times,  "  confined  the  nation 
within  its  proper  boundaries." 

These  continued  wars,  however,  are  far  too  many  to  find 
record  here.  When  the  feeble  Hyrcanus  had  run  his  course 
through  the  tortuous  ways  of  a  weak  and  dependent  ruler, 
Herod  the  son  of  Antipater,  his  champion  for  a  long  time 
and  general,  ill-rewarded  and  often  doubted,  assumed  his 
place.  Hyrcanus  had  borne  the  title  of  king  as  well  as  high 
priest.  But  Herod  was  a  Roman  general,  and  reigned  over 
Jerusalem  by  right  of  conquest  and  the  strong  hand,  as 
Tetrarch  of  Judea.  It  is  unnecessary  to  enter  into  his 
history.  During  all  the  vicissitudes  of  his  reign,  he  at  least 
did  his  best  to  preserve  the  Temple  from  desecration.  He 
restored  it  afterwards,  as  Josephus  tells  us,  at  "incalculable 
expense,"  enlarging  the  area,  and  building  "  ample  colon- 
nades around  the  holy  place,"  which  must  have  added  greatly  . 
to  the  dignity  and  splendour  of  its  general  aspect.  It  was 
under  this  form  that  our  Lord  must  have  beheld  with  human 
eyes  His  Father's  house  :  and  no  doubt,  many  of  His  con- 
versations with  the  Jews  were  held  in  those  same  ample 
cloisters,  cool  and  shaded,  where  those  who  spent  a  great 
part  of  their  time  in  the  Temple  courts  would  find  pleasant 
shelter.  The  great  tower,  called  of  Antonia,  at  the  north- 
west angle  of  the   enclosure  was  also  built  by  Herod.      Of 


THE  MACCABEES  381 


these  superstructions   it  is   needless   to  say  no   vestige   now 
remains. 

It  throws  some  light,  however,  upon  the  magnitudes  of 
antique  description  to  read  the  account  of  the  Temple  which 
this  prince  built  to  Cxsar  at  the  sources  of  the  Jordan.  Herod, 
half  proselyte,  half  heathen,  had  all  the  tolerance  of  paganism, 
and  built  many  fanes  of  this  kind  while  beautifying  the  great 
centre  of  the  most  intensely  exclusive  religion  of  the  world. 
"  Here,"  says  Josephus,  "  is  a  mountain  whose  summit  lifts 
itself  to  a  vast  height,  and  close  by  a  hollow  at  its  ba.se,  a 
gloomy  cavern  opens  from  below,  in  which  a  yawning  chasm 
descends  abruptly  to  an  immeasurable  depth,  containing  a 
vast  collection  of  still  water  hitherto  found  unfathomable  by 
any  length  of  line."  Thus  are  described  the  picturesque  cliff 
and  bubbling  waters  of  Banias,  once  known  by  the  name 
of  Caesarea  Philippi,  the  most  northern  spot,  so  far  as 
we  know,  of  our  Lord's  journeyings,  where  Peter's  great 
confession  was  made.  Perhaps  these  superlative  adjectives 
applied  thus  to  a  woodland  dell  may  make  it  more  com- 
prehensible that  the  soft  slopes  on  the  northern  side  of 
Jerusalem  should  appear  to  Pompey's  troops  a  "  frightful 
ravine." 

The  reader  knows  what  wonderful  event  happened  in  the 
last  days  of  Herod,  and  how,  believing  as  he  did,  that  One 
was  born  who  was  sent  by  God  to  be  King  of  the  Jews,  One 
of  whom  the  prophets  had  written,  and  of  whom  his  learned 
counsellors  could  tell  him  even  the  very  place  of  the  promised 
birth  :  this  strange  Eastern  potentate  in  his  madness  put  forth 
a  bloody  and  a  dreadful  hand  to  nullify  if  he  could  the 
decree  of  heaven.  That  such  a  thing  should  have  been 
done  by  an  unbeliever  would  be  natural  enough — but  the 
act  of  Herod  was  that  of  a  man  who  had  no  apparent 
doubt  that  it  was  the  actual  ordinance  of  God,  long  ago 
settled  and  foretold,  which  he  attempted  to  make  im- 
possible. Such  subtilties  of  the  primitive  mind  are  beyond 
comprehension — all  the  more  as  the  man  who  did  so  had 
been  a  powerful  guardian  and  protector  of  the  nation. 
Thus  his    was  the  hand    which  not   only    tried  to   cut  off 


382  THE  RETURN  AND  RESTORATION  part  in 

the  final  and  everlasting  Monarch,  but,  at  the  same  time, 
adorned  Jerusalem  like  a  bride  to  await  His  coming — 
glorious  as  in  all  her  vicissitudes  she  had  never  been 
before. 

The  literature  of  this  long  period  of  disaster,  captivity, 
and  restoration  is  vaguely  celebrated  by  supposition,  and 
by  that  restless  desire  for  a  new  hypothesis  which  is 
characteristic  of  the  criticism  of  the  day  ;  but  must  be  left 
in  the  mist  of  things  for  which  there  is  no  evidence.  A 
recent  authority,  in  so  dignified  a  medium  as  the  Bampton 
Lectures,  has  attributed,  with  a  wonderful  sweep  of  bold  asser- 
tion, the  whole,  or  almost  the  whole,  of  the  Psalms  to  the  age 
of  the  Maccabees,  with  a  hardihood  of  conjecture  which  is 
only  permitted  in  discussions  of  the  canon  of  Scripture.  That 
many  of  these  sacred  songs  express  the  feelings  of  the  exiles 
no  one  will  deny.  The  "  horrible  pit  and  miry  clay "  of 
Jeremiah  is  evidence,  excellent  in  literature,  as  is  that  utter- 
ance of  sorrow  which  came  from  the  waters  of  Babylon. 
The  beautiful  Songs  of  Degrees  seem  to  reveal  to  us 
the  habit  of  those  yearly  journeys  to  Jerusalem  which 
we  find  existing  in  the  New  Testament,  with  a  fresh  and 
delightful  verisimilitude.  Having  no  other  evidence,  the 
literary  evidence  is  enough  to  determine  these  songs  as  the 
production  of  a  people  restored  to  their  own  land,  going  up 
periodically  to  keep  the  feast.  Further  than  this  it  is 
difificult  to  go.  The  genius  of  the  Hebrews  would  seem  to 
have  fallen  into  legendary  tales  and  those  collections  of 
maxims  which  belong  to  the  earliest  habits  of  the  race. 
Their  sacred  songs  are  the  "  wood-notes  wild,"  beautiful  and 
sweet,  of  minor  poets;  their  histories,  individual  and  fantas- 
tical, "  apocryphal,"  full  of  interest :  but  only  as  we  have 
said  like  the  dramatists  of  Shakespeare's  time  in  comparison 
with  him,  when  placed  beside  the  Scripture  record.  Other 
light  than  what  is  to  be  derived  from  themselves  there  is 
none  :   and  this  is  what,  I  think,  those  relics  say. 


PART    IV 
THE  FINAL  TRAGEDY 


2  C 


CHAPTER    I 

THE  SON   OF   DAVID 

The  existence  of  the  Jewish  nation  after  the  time  of  the 
return  from  Babylon  until  that  in  which  it  once  more  stood 
forth  as  the  glory  of  the  whole  earth,  the  centre  of  history, 
the  most  wonderful  and  memorable  of  all  places  in  the  world, 
was,  as  we  have  seen,  little  different  from  that  of  the  many 
struggling  nationalities  which  were  finally  absorbed  in  the 
great  Roman  empire,  except  for  the  romantic  and  striking 
episode  of  the  Maccabees,  the  obstinate  preservation  of  its 
special  customs  and  worship,  and  the  gradual  development 
of  that  idolatry  of  the  law  which  replaced  Baal  and  Astarte 
in  the  mind  of  the  nation,  and  produced  the  strange  and 
rigid  casuistical  science  and  pietism  of  latter  years.  When 
the  time  had  come  for  that  great  final  tragedy  which  con- 
firmed for  ever  the  empire  of  Jerusalem  over  the  world,  the 
external  circumstances  of  the  nation  had  changed  in  many 
respects.  Instead  of  the  narrow  limits  of  Judah  and  Ben- 
jamin, in  which  all  sacred  associations  had  been  enclosed,  the 
enlarged  tetrarchate  of  Herod  was  full  of  faithful  Jews 
outside  these  narrow  boundaries,  though  never  extending, 
as  at  first,  throughout  the  ancient  lines  of  Israel.  The 
Samaritans  still  occupied  the  central  portion  of  Palestine, 
unchanged  in  the  divergency  of  faith  which  became  conspicu- 
ous after  the  captivity,  and  holding  an  attitude  of  hostility 
more  or  less  marked,  though  kept  by  imperial  supervision 
from  all  overt  acts.  The  difference,  always  difficult  to  define 
between  that  mixed  race,  which,  if  only  half  Jew,  was  yet 


388  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

not  pagan,  and  insisted  upon  its  traditions  as  much  as  did 
the  orthodox  Judean  and  its  kindred  of  Judah,  had 
consolidated  into  a  sort  of  national  opposition.  "  The 
Jews  have  no  dealings  with  the  Samaritans."  But  the 
northern  part  of  the  kingdom  had  returned  to  its  allegi- 
ance to  Jerusalem,  and  was  inhabited  by  vigorous  and 
devout  Jews,  whose  habit  of  going  up  to  Jerusalem  to  keep 
the  feasts  was  evidently  quite  established  as  one  of  the  rules 
of  life.  The  inhabitants  of  "  the  land  of  Zabulon  and  the 
land  of  Nephtalim,"  and  those  parts  which  lay  "  beyond 
Jordan  in  Galilee  of  the  nations,"  described  by  Isaiah  as 
"  people  that  walked  in  darkness,"  were  now  among  the  most 
pious  members  of  the  commonwealth,  making  their  pilgrim- 
age to  the  chief  centre  of  the  faith  at  least. once  a  year, 
while  maintaining  the  comparatively  modern  institution  of 
the  synagogue  among  themselves.  Jerusalem  appears  to 
us  something  as  mediaeval  Rome  did  in  the  time  when  that 
great  city  was  the  undisputed  head  of  a  powerful  hierarchy 
and  the  undeniable  centre  of  Christendom — a  city  of  am- 
bitious ecclesiastics,  of  formal  theologians  and  of  priests,  as 
much  concerned  with  politics  as  with  devotion.  The  true 
and  humble  hearts  which  held  the  spiritual  part  of  religion 
dear  were  to  be  found  among  the  peasants  and  fishermen  of 
the  north,  bound  to  the  centre  of  their  religious  economy  by 
a  bond  so  strong  that  it  neutralised  distance  and  the  great 
tax  upon  life  of  one  or  more  lingering  journeys  every  year 
for  the  celebration  of  the  religious  mysteries.  The  people 
that  walked  in  darkness  had  already  seen  a  great  light. 
True  piety  had  found  refuge  among  them,  even  before  the 
Light  that  lighteth  every  man  had  been  revealed. 

It  was  among  these  simple  northern  folk  that  God  found 
the  pure  and  tender  maiden  who  was  to  be  the  instrument  of 
His  purpose.  She  was  found  in  no  beautiful  mediaeval  hall, 
half  oratory,  half  palace,  such  as  are  those  scenes  in  which 
painters  have  enshrined  her  lowly  sweetness.  Was  it,  perhaps 
in  a  rock-hewn  chamber  in  a  humble  dwelling  of  Nazareth, 
dim  and  cool  and  impervious  to  the  blazing  day  :  or,  as  she 
sat  and  mused  in   a  quiet  moment  with  her  pitcher  at  the 


THE  SON  OF  DA  VID  391 


well,  that  the  great  radiance  of  the  angel  came  into  the 
quiet,  and  Mary  heard  those  strange  words  which  have 
mingled  in  the  prayers  of  so  many  generations  since  then  : 
"  Hail,  Mary,  full  of  grace  !  "  ?  It  was  a  greeting  that  troubled 
her,  so  much  too  reverential  and  important  as  it  seemed  for 
a  humble  villager,  as  if  she  were  a  great  lady.  But  when 
she  heard  the  after-message,  so  much  more  wonderful  than 
any  that  was  ever  given  to  the  greatest  empress  in  the  world, 
her  sentiments  seem  to  have  undergone  a  change.  She 
was  no  longer  troubled  as  by  a  greeting  more  than  was  her 
due.  In  the  region  of  religion  all  things  are  possible.  As 
soon  as  she  became  aware  of  what  the  real  question  was,  the 
devout  calm  of  her  nature  returned  to  her.  Behold  the 
handmaid  of  the  Lord  !  disturbed  to  be  approached  with 
external  honour  that  was  not  her  due,  but  receiving  in  an 
awed  yet  undoubting  calm,  of  deep  reverence  and  obedience, 
the  far  greater  and  more  wonderful  commission  communi- 
cated to  her  direct  from  God. 

It  is  evident  that  the  appearance  of  the  angel  in  itself 
did  not  alarm  or  disturb  the  sweet  composure  of  this  village 
girl.  Was  it,  perhaps,  that  Gabriel  came  with  no  effulgence 
of  heaven  about  him,  but  in  the  guise  of  a  human  wayfarer, 
some  wandering  teacher  or  hakim,  such  as  might  pass  with- 
out special  notice  along  the  paths  of  Galilee?  And  how 
natural  was  the  impulse  which  led  her  when  she  had  time  to 
think,  to  arise  and  go  "  in  haste  "  to  the  village  in  which  her 
old  cousin  Elizabeth  had  also  received  a  special  visitation 
which  might  throw  light  upon  this  !  No  doubt  the  more 
she  thought  the  more  wonderful  would  it  appear,  and  her 
heart  would  burn  within  her  till  the  moment  came  when  she 
could  join  some  band  of  pilgrims  or  travelling  family,  and  so 
make  her  way  to  that  hill  country  of  Judah  on  the  other 
side  of  Jerusalem  where  the  home  of  Zacharias  and  Eliza- 
beth was.  The  meeting  between  these  women  is  one  of  the 
most  touching  incidents  in  human  history.  It  has  been 
selected  by  the  instinct  of  art  for  frequent  illustration,  and 
to  women  especially  in  their  peculiar  experiences  must 
always  remain  full  of  tender  interest  and  sympathetic  feeling. 


392 


THE  FINAL  TRAGEDY 


Many  a  woman  pilgrim  has  gone  with  a  wistful  sense  of 
fellowship  to  gaze  at  such  a  picture  as  that  of  Albcrtinelli, 
the  great  "  Visitation "  at  Florence,  during  all  the  ages 
since  that  wonderful   meeting  was  painted — as   many,  many 


THE    BETHLEHEM    ROAD 


more  have  read  and  lingered  over  the  still  more  touch- 
ing narrative.  But  that  mystery  of  motherhood  is  too 
internal  and  profound  for  words.  It  had  been,  we  must 
remember,  in  all  the  previous  ages  of  the  Hebrews,  the  hope 
and  inspiration  of  that  peculiar  people.     The  deepest  depriva- 


THE  SON  OF  DA  VI D  393 


tion  of  life  to  a  woman  was  that  she  should  have  no  children  : 
it  was  almost  a  personal  shame.  "  God  hath  taken  away  my 
reproach"  is  what  Elizabeth  herself  and  many  another 
Hebrew  mother  had  said  ;  for  was  it  not  always  possible  to 
every  one  among  them  that  in  her  child  the  Messiah,  the 
great  Prophet,  might  be  revealed  ?  There  is  no  appearance 
that  Mary  the  daughter  of  David  was  disturbed  by  any 
terrible  sense  of  the  miracle  to  be  accomplished  in  her.  The 
whole  history  of  her  race  was  miraculous,  and  the  entire  age, 
reaching  even  to  such  tranquil  depths  of  lowly  life  as  those 
of  Nazareth,  was  moved  by  the  hope,  the  expectation  of 
some  great  change  and  Deliverer  about  to  come.  Nor  is  it 
necessary  to  account  for  her  attitude  and  state  of  mind  by 
special  reference  to  the  temper  of  her  time.  The  pure- 
hearted  and  visionary  girl,  most  delicate  flower  of  human 
kind,  is  always  more  or  less  in  the  same  mental  condition, 
disturbed  to  be  greeted  as  a  princess,  not  disturbed  by 
heavenly  communication  of  a  great  mission,  embarrassed  by 
the  one,  finding  the  other  even  natural.  Joan  of  Arc  was 
not  surprised  to  find  herself  a  captain  and  leader  of  the 
armies  of  France.  A  devout  and  simple  acquiescence  in 
inconceivable  mysteries  is  the  inheritance  of  the  spotless 
soul. 

Then  came  the  other  journey  in  a  less  propitious  moment, 
under  the  care  of  the  devout  and  serious  Joseph,  a  man  a 
little  saddened,  as  the  imagination  cannot  but  conceive 
him,  by  the  strange  circumstances,  alarmed  by  the  responsi- 
bility, with  an  ache  in  his  heart  over  the  sacrifice  required  of 
him,  and  the  wonder  of  it  all.  The  way  to  Bethlehem  was 
long  and  the  inn  was  full.  Perhaps  the  time  of  the  year,  and 
certainly  the  circumstances,  would  make  it  impossible  for 
that  little  humble  group  from  Bethlehem  to  spread  their  mats 
and  take  their  repose  in  the  Court  of  the  Khan,  where, 
doubtless,  their  natural  place  would  have  been  ;  and  the  inn 
with  its  subterranean  chambers  and  stables  below,  half  natural 
cave,  half  hewn  and  hollowed  in  the  rock,  would  have  prob- 
ably very  little  accommodation  above.  No  doubt  the  cjuict 
of  the  underground   nook,  warm  with  the  soft  breath  of  the 


394 


THE  FINAL  TRAGEDY 


cattle,  was  grateful  and  in  no  way  unusual  to  the  young 
mother,  not  unaccustomed  to  such  close  neighbourhood  with 
the  docile  creatures,  and  glad  to  be  out  of  sight  and  disturb- 
ance of  men.  This  cave-chamber  has  been  accepted  by,  I 
think,  the  majority  of  recent  investigators  as  the  real  spot  of 
the  Nativity,  notwithstanding  the  difficulty  of  the  fact  that 
there    is    at    present    no    entrance    save    by    a    stair ;    the 


RACHELS    TOMB,  ON   THE    WAY    Tu    IJETHLEHE.M 


universal  tradition  of  Jew,  Moslem,  and  Christian  hav- 
ing so  identified  it  through  all  the  ages.  There  is  a 
recess  where  the  carpets  and  mats  would  be  laid  just 
opposite  the  rock-hewn  manger,  and  the  other  rocky  chamber 
in  which  the  mild  neighbours,  half  seen,  chewing  the  cud  in 
harmless  quiet,  would  stand  beyond.  The  manger  is  now 
replaced  with  one  of  marble,  a  silver  star  shines  on  the  floor, 
the  place  is  full  of  twinkling  candles  in  the  darkness,  crossed 


CHAP.  I  THE  SON  OF  DA  VI D  395 

by  an  intense  blue  ray  of  light  from  the  rocky  stair.  And 
yet  it  is  difficult  to  stand  in  that  still  place  and  not  recognise 
its  naturalness,  the  simple  verification  of  all  descriptions,  the 
possibilities  of  the  scene.  The  dazzled  shepherds  would 
probably  stumble  in  through  some  cave-doorway  now  filled 
up,  seeing  nothing  till  their  eyes  were  accustomed  to  the 
darkness  ;  and  there  would  come  the  astonished  astrologers 
from  the  far  Eastern  plains,  who  had  seen  his  star  and  come 
to  worship  the  Child  who  was  born  King  of  the  Jews.  I 
cannot  think  the  traveller  lives,  even  were  he  mere  tourist, 
so  lost  to  all  sense  of  sacred  things  or — lesser,  but  still 
potent  spell — of  all  respect  for  the  long  long  tradition 
transmitted  through  the  dimness  of  the  ages,  who  could 
stand  otherwise  than  awed  and  silent  in  that  holy  place. 

The  King  of  the  Jews !  Thus  hailed  in  the  hour  of  his 
birth,  thus  certified  to  earth  and  heaven  on  the  day  of  his 
death,  his  royal  seat  in  one  instance  the  manger,  in  the 
other  the  Cross  ;  proclaimed  by  two  foreign  voices,  one  the 
representatives  of  great  empires  past,  which  had  heard  of  the 
promise  of  his  coming  centuries  before,  the  other  of  that  still 
greater  empire  then  existent,  mistress  of  the  world,  which 
was  to  be  transformed  by  his  name.  Too  wonderful  to  be, 
too  impossible  to  be  believed,  might  any  man  say  to  whom 
history  was  unknown  ;  yet  not  so  wonderful,  not  so  impos- 
sible to  flesh  and  blood,  as  the  life  that  lay  between. 

The  early  career  of  the  Child  born  in  that  underground 
chamber  is  made  known  to  us  only  by  a  vivid  picture  or 
two,  full  of  significance.  His  recognition  in  the  Temple, 
where  he  was  carried,  no  doubt,  in  subdued  and  reverential 
joy,  with  the  young  mother's  humble  offering  of  the  doves, 
and  the  two  venerable  figures  of  the  aged  saints  "  waiting 
for  the  consolation  of  Israel,"  who  gave  that  greeting  to  the 
child  who  was  "  the  Lord's  Christ "  :  the  flight  to  a  place 
of  safety  in  order  to  save  him  from  the  murderous  raid  of 
Herod  :  the  anxious  return  to  the  home  in  Nazareth  when 
the  danger  was  over  :  are  all  told  in  a  few  words.  Nazareth, 
in  its  little  amphitheatre  of  low  hills,  was  the  most  tranquil 
home   for   the   growing   life,   not    like    Bethlehem    with    the 


396 


THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY 


heights  and  hollows  of  Judah  all  spread  around  it,  and  the 
associations  of  its  royal  race — but  a  humble  little  town  hid 
amid  its  trees,  with  little  prospect  of  any  kind,  apart  from 
all  high  roads  and  channels  of  communication  with  the 
great  world.  That  yearly  pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem  would 
be  the  great  event  of  its  village  life,  a  wonderful  incident 
indeed  breaking  the  homely  level  of  every  day,  a  thing  to 
be  looked  forward  to  for  the  whole  year.  It  was  not  till 
the  son  of  Mary,  the  son  of  the  carpenter,  had  attained  the 
age  of  twelve,  the  early  maturity  of  the  East,  that  he  joined 


CONVENT    OF   THE    NATIVITV,    IJETHLEHEM 


that  jubilant  throng,  a  great  crisis  in  the  life  of  a  boy,  and 
marking  a  personal  era.  The  first  time  in  which  the  pupil, 
the  postulant,  ascended  the  Temple  stairs  and  went  up  into 
the  house  of  God,  taking  upon  him  the  privileges  and  duties 
of  his  birthright,  must  have  been  something  like  the  con- 
firmation, the  first  communion  of  the  Christian  Common- 
wealth. We  may  easily  imagine  with  what  a  tissue  of 
miraculous  events  the  growing  years  of  the  wonderful  Child 
would  have  been  woven  had  not  a  divine  reticence  and 
modesty  of  nature  restrained  the  biographers,  who  use  no 
such  expedient  to  win  our  interest  in  the  brief  narratives 
of  the    gospels.       What   is   given   us   there   is  only  what  is 


rilE  SON  OF  DA  VJD  397 


necessary  to  our  understanding  of  the  life  and  death  which 
form  the  central  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  world.  In 
that  little  town  of  Galilee,  too  remote  to  know  any  of  the 
tales  of  distant  Bethlehem,  there  would  be  no  special  cir- 
cumstance to  draw  attention  to  the  carpenter's  son.  In  the 
memory  of  his  mother  every  incident  was  dear,  but  neither 
did  she  know  what  was  to  come  of  them  :  and,  doubtless, 
the  mystery  of  his  birth  was  the  secret  of  the  household,  a 
remembrance  of  awe  and  wonder,  but  yet  in  the  curious 
composure  of  daily  existence  fallen  into  abeyance,  not  for- 
gotten yet  put  aside  in  that  familiar  routine  which  makes 
every  wonder  seem  natural.  The  Divine  Child  was  silent 
in  his  slow  growth  into  man,  and  probably  so  obedient  to 
the  laws  of  the  humanity  which  he  had  assumed  as  to 
present  no  greater  divinity  to  the  eyes  of  the  world  than 
that  of  spotless  childhood  and  developing  genius  in  the 
midst  of  the  common  clay.  We  may  partly  conceive  how 
he  would  take  pleasure,  with  a  novelty  of  .sacred  joy  in  so 
strange  a  change  of  position,  in  all  the  sights  and  sounds  ot 
nature,  the  harmony  of  creation  which  that  veil  of  flesh 
might  make  him,  for  a  time,  half  unconscious  of  having 
shaped  and  formed  :  and  that  all  the  humble  influences  of 
morning  and  evening,  of  the  stars  and  dews,  would  enter 
into  his  mind,  perhaps,  if  we  may  say  it,  with  a  tender 
surprise  of  changed  perception  from  the  sphere  of  the  Maker 
into  that  of  the  created.  But  these  secrets  ot  the  expanding 
human  soul,  half  divine  even  in  the  merest  mortal  child 

Who  by  the  vision  splendid 
Is  on  his  way  attended 

are  too  sacred  in  the  silence  of  the  record  for  other  handling. 
And  it  is  not  till  "  the  Lord  "  came  "  suddenly  to  his  Temple  " 
that  the  veil  is  for  a  moment  withdrawn. 

That  Temple,  the  centre  of  Hebrew  life,  the  symbol  of 
national  greatness,  so  often  destroyed,  .so  often  restored,  so 
long  and  mysteriously  preserved  through  all  the  ages,  takes 
a  singular  and  altogether  novel  place  in  the  experiences  of 
the  man  Christ  Jesus  who  came  to  abrogate  it,  and  wind  up 


398  THE  FINAL  TRAGEDY  tart  iv 

the  economy  of  which  it  formed  so  great  a  part.  He  seems 
to  have  sought  it  during  the  years  of  his  ministry  as  the 
centre  of  all  his  own  pursuits  and  occupations,  but  not  with 
the  feeling  of  those  who  took  pleasure  in  the  stones  of  Sion 
and  to  whom  her  very  dust  was  dear.  From  the  first 
the  Temple  is  doomed  in  his  eyes,  a  thing  awaiting 
destruction  ;  and,  if  he  gazes  mournfully  upon  its  beauty 
and  splendour,  something  of  the  holy  indignation  of  one 
to  whom  all  the  lost  opportunities  and  divine  purposes 
travestied  and  mistaken,  of  which  it  is  the  embodiment, 
are  ever  present,  is  in  his  look. 

But  when  he  came  first  to  that  historical  monument, 
that  scene  of  so  many  revelations,  the  first  impulse  of  his 
mission  was  awakened  in  the  young  pilgrim.  Was  it  a 
desire  to  hear  for  himself,  according  to  his  human  senses, 
what  were  the  things  taught,  and  what  the  trifling  details  dis- 
cussed amid  all  the  problems  of  life  and  death,  between 
heaven  and  earth,  in  that  sanctuary  which  had  been  founded 
in  order  that  God  might  dwell  with  man  ?  There  was  the 
high  priest  in  all  his  robes  of  office,  there  were  the  others  in 
their  courses,  punctilious  over  the  minutest  particulars  of 
service :  and  the  scribes  and  doctors  discussing  sacred 
numerals  and  symbols,  and  how  often  a  certain  word 
appeared  in  the  law  and  the  prophets  ;  and  the  Pharisees 
taxing  their  mint  and  cumin,  and  calculating  what  should 
be  the  amount  of  the  Corban  which  freed  a  man  from  the 
law  of  honour  to  his  parents.  How  strangely  different  from 
those  high  questionings  of  the  ways  of  God  with  man  which 
should  have  occupied  the  thoughts  of  a  special  and  chosen 
race !  The  Evangelist  has  not  thought  it  necessary  to  tell 
us  what  questions  the  boy  Jesus  from  Nazareth  asked  of 
these  pundits,  nor  how  he  lay  down  in  a  chamber  of  the 
Temple  favoured  by  some  gentle  priest  whose  heart  burned 
within  him  while  he  listened  to  the  wonderful  Child — and 
rose  again  to  pursue  his  inquiries  from  morning  to  morning 
till  the  third  day  brought  back  the  anxious  pair  who  had 
him  in  their  charge. 

How  strange    a  scene  !      The  puzzled   doctors,  stopped 


THE  SON  OF  DA  VI D  399 


in  their  unprofitable  learning,  putting  impossible  cases 
to  each  other  by  one,  by  two,  by  three,  like  the  school- 
men in  later  ages — pausing,  lifting  their  eyebrows,  curving 
a  hand  round  a  dull  ear,  to  make  out  what  that  Child 
was  asking,  some  startling  penetrating  question — perhaps, 
though  of  higher  meaning,  not  unlike  those  which  even 
the  merest  child  of  earth  has  the  gift  of  asking,  to  the  con- 
fusion of  many  subtilties.  Whose  was  the  Child  ?  Not  even 
a  young  Levite,  of  whom  it  might  be  hoped  that  His  strange 
genius  would  be  shaped  into  the  service  of  the  hierarchy  in 
later  days  :  but  a  peasant's  son  from  Galilee,  almost  a  Gentile, 
though  some  one  might  know  that  he  ,bore  the  lineage  of 
David.  When  the  simple  pair,  anxious  and  displeased  to 
be  brought  back  so  many  miles  of  their  journey,  appeared 
in  the  midst  of  those  crowded  courts  of  the  Temple,  in  the 
chamber  by  the  gate  where  the  scribes  disputed,  with  the 
throng  looking  in  if  anything  of  interest  was  going  on — one 
can  understand  that  the  learned  doctors  were  very  glad  to 
be  rid  of  their  youthful  questioner.  A  young  Socrates  pursu- 
ing them  to  the  end  of  their  futile  arguments  with  a  cut 
bono  ?  making  them  as  fools  to  themselves  by  some  piercing 
interrogatory.  It  was  his  first  inspection  of  his  Father's 
house,  from  the  point  of  view  of  human  intelligence,  and, 
no  doubt,  his  childhood  afforded  an  excuse  and  explanation 
of  that  one  appearance,  which  could  not  have  been  continued 
without  premature  revelation  of  his  mission  in  the  after  years, 
when  he  must  have  come  up  with  his  family  again  and  again, 
silent  and  dutiful,  fulfilling  all  righteousness.  The  boy  could 
do  what  the  young  man  could  not  without  betraying  himself 
And  who  shall  penetrate  the  mystery  of  these  silent 
years  during  which  the  Son  of  God  grew  in  wisdom  and 
stature  in  the  calm  of  the  little  Galilean  city  ?  The  still 
greater  calm  of  the  common  human  folk  who  surrounded 
that  place  and  did  not  see  what  was  the  wonder  that 
encircled  Jesus,  the  son  of  Joseph,  is  the  most  wonderful 
thought  of  all.  His  brothers  or  cousins  James  and  Judas 
must  have  known  every  feature  of  his  life,  and,  perhaps, 
there    is   something   in    that    familiarity  of  boyhood    which 


40O  THE  FINAL  TRAGEDY  part  iv 

gives  to  the  after -teachings  of  James,  so  concise  and 
practical,  an  air  of  more  complete  devotion  to  the  outside 
duties  of  the  Christian  life  than  to  the  contemplation  of 
the  Divine  Master.  But  among  all  who  walked  those 
familiar  paths,  and  passed  him  with  a  morning  greeting, 
and  saw  him  take  his  way  when  the  day's  work  was  over 
to  the  solitude  of  the  hill,  to  seek  the  Divine  society  from 
which  he  was  an  exile — would  there  be  none  who  pene- 
trated that  disguise  and  knew  that  Messias  had  come  ? 
"  His  mother  kept  all  these  sayings  in  her  heart " — doubtful, 
too,  towards  what  they  were  tending,  pondering  many 
times  we  may  be  sure  that  prophecy  of  his  earliest  infancy, 
"  a  sword  shall  pierce  through  thine  own  heart  also."  What 
sword  could  come  to  her  through  that  perfect  son,  growing 
daily  in  favour  with  God  and  man  ?  Perhaps  she  hoped, 
with  fond  denials  to  herself  of  any  power  that  could  harm 
one  so  divine,  that  the  prophecy  might  fail  ;  perhaps  looked 
forward,  with  the  all-submission  of  her  own  youth,  "  Behold 
the  handmaid  of  the  Lord,"  to  the  future  so  full  of  awe  yet 
of  hope,  but  knew  nothing  of  all  that  was  to  be. 

"  Wist  ye  not  that  I  must  be  about  my  Father's  busi- 
ness ? "  It  would  almost  seem  that  he  was  surprised  that 
she  did  not  understand  ;  as  he  was  surprised,  notwithstanding 
that  he  knew  all  that  was  in  man,  at  the  incapacity  of  his 
disciples  long  after  to  knov/  what  he  could  mean. 

It  is  with  hesitation  and  faltering  that  we  venture  to 
enter  upon  the  history  of  this  most  wonderful  life.  It  has 
been  put  before  us  with  such  divine  simplicity  and  vividness, 
and  has,  thank  heaven,  so  thoroughly  pervaded  the  very 
atmosphere  of  all  the  modern  world,  that  it  has  always 
seemed  to  me  a  presumption  to  attempt  to  write  a  "  life  of 
Christ " :  as  if  such  halting  attempts  at  chronological 
arrangement,  or  local  illustration,  as  we  can  give,  could  in 
any  way  enhance  the  wonder  or  the  beauty  of  that  history 
which  has  no  parallel.  The  present  writer,  above  all,  would 
not  have  made  any  such  presumptuous  venture,  had  not 
the  story  of  the  sacred  city  demanded  that  its  last  and 
greatest    era    should     not    be    passed     over,    even    if    from 


A    STKERT    IN    nRTHLBHKM 


3  D 


THE  SON  OF  DA  VID  403 


motives  of  the  deepest  reverence ;  for  Jerusalem  would 
have  had  little  meaning  after  all  in  the  ancient  ages  through 
which  she  held  so  pertinaciously  her  appointed  way,  re- 
created again  and  again  out  of  death  and  debasement  like 
the  phoenix  of  the  fable — but  for  him  in  whose  appearance 
all  broken  meanings  became  clear,  the  everlasting  Truth  ; 
as  she  would  have  little  meaning  now,  a  little  town  in 
Palestine,  a  trifling  Eastern  city,  to  be  the  object  of  so  many 
pilgrimages,  and  so  much  veneration,  if  it  were  not  for 
that  one  chapter  of  history,  which  is  of  more  importance  to 
the  human  race  than  everything  beside. 

I  venture,  therefore,  to  take  with  reverence  from  the 
only  chronicle  and  record  of  that  divine  life  the  incidents 
which  occurred  in  Jerusalem,  attempting  little  further  except 
what  is  necessary  for  the  unity  of  the  narrative  :  not- 
withstanding that  the  charm  is  almost  greater  of  the 
Lake  of  Galilee  and  those  events  which  centre  around  that 
beautiful  and  tranquil  spot,  where  more  than  any  other 
on  earth  the  pilgrim  feels  as  if  he  could  almost  see  one 
benignant  figure  walking  by  the  shore,  and  meet  the 
group  of  anxious  attendants  bearing  their  sick,  of  feeble 
sufferers  creeping  forth  into  the  divine  effulgence  of  that 
look  which  carried  healing  wherever  it  shone.  There, 
at  first,  were  no  Pharisees  to  make  that  countenance 
stern,  no  contention  of  scribes,  no  crowd  gaping  for  a  sign, 
no  organised  band  of  formalists  and  self-righteous  :  but 
only  the  common  folk  in  their  needs  and  troubles,  the 
fathers  and  mothers  with  their  children,  the  cry  to  him 
on  all  sides  for  help  and  succour,  the  petitions  of  love. 
Pious  commentators  in  modern  days  have  bidden  us  only 
to  ask  for  spiritual  gifts,  to  reckon  upon  no  answer  to 
prayer  in  which  personal  advantage  is  involved  ;  but  thank 
God  it  was  not  .so  in  those  old  days  in  Galilee,  where 
every  parent  brought  his  sick  child,  and  the  women  impor- 
tuned him  if  he  did  not  seem  to  hear,  and  all  that  were  in 
trouble  sought  his  feet,  plucked  at  his  robe,  never  paused 
to  think  that  it  was  for  their  advantage  to  get  well,  and 
for    their    happiness    to    have    their    children    restored    to 


404  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

them.  Nor  did  he,  the  Lord  and  Giver  of  Life.  To 
my  own  mind  there  is  nothing  so  futile  in  this  miraculous 
earth  as  the  discussion  of  miracles  which  were  a 
natural  radiation  from  the  very  touch  upon  mortal  soil 
of  a  being  transcendent  in  power  and  goodness.  He  is  a 
far  greater  miracle  than  anything  he  did.  Let  it  be  shown 
how  such  a  one  came  into  being,  alone,  supreme,  unequalled, 
not  only  in  all  history,  but  in  all  poetry  and  the  loftiest 
imagination  of  man,  which  has  never  produced  anything 
that  can  be  placed  near  him — any  more  than  art  has  ever 
produced  anything  beyond  the  divine  suggestion  of  an 
infant,  which  is  worthy  in  the  most  remote  degree  to  bear 
his  name.  Let  this  be  explained  to  us,  we  say  in  the  first 
place,  and  then  we  may  be  at  leisure  to  examine  into  that 
mystery  of  the  swine  which  seems  so  much  more  congenial 
to  some  inquirers.  No  learning  is  necessary  to  know  the 
premises  of  the  inquiry.  It  seems  the  first  question  to 
settle,  the  very  head  and  front  of  all  investigation. 

Jesus  of  Nazareth,  as  was  the  custom  of  the  time  and 
race,  waited  until  he  had  attained  the  full  maturity  of 
manhood  before  beginning  his  work.  It  was  the  age  at 
which  the  priests  assumed  their  office,  an  age  in  which 
it  was  supposed,  according  to  the  early  development  of 
the  East,  that  the  period  of  youth  had  passed  and  that  of 
full  manhood  and  competence  to  undertake  the  gravest 
responsibilities  had  arrived.  John  the  Baptist  whose  birth 
preceded  that  of  his  Lord  only  by  a  few  months,  had 
followed  the  same  rule,  and  thus  appeared  out  of  the 
wilderness  to  fulfil  his  office  at  a  corresponding  age,  the 
work  of  the  forerunner  being  of  short  duration  though  of 
the  most  striking  and  indeed  startling  kind.  The  con- 
junction of  these  two  figures,  the  wistful  and  expectant 
prophet,  not  knowing  from  which  side  to  expect  the 
appearance  of  the  Lord,  looking  eagerly  upon  every  new 
neophyte  to  see  if  perhaps  this  was  he,  and  the  calm 
sublime  of  him  who  came  to  fulfil  all  righteousness,  is 
one  of  the  most  wonderful  of  Gospel  pictures.  "  I  knew 
him  not ;  but  he  that  sent  me  to  baptize  with  water  said 


THE  SON  OF  DA  VI D  405 


to  me  " — The  representative  of  all  the  prophets,  the  second 
Elias,  the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness,  he  who  had 
been  a  hermit  living  in  solitary  places  out  of  the  way  of 
men,  had,  no  doubt,  forgotten  if  in  his  desert  life  he  ever 
knew,  the  aspect  of  his  young  kinsman — until  the  Divine 
sign  was  given  which  pointed  him  out  as  the  Lamb  of  God. 
After  the  revelation  had  been  made,  and  his  human  life  thus 
consecrated  to  his  mission,  Jesus  returned  to  his  natural 
home  ;  or  rather,  it  would  be  better  to  say,  to  the  shores 
of  the  Lake  of  Galilee  which  was  a  day's  journey  from 
Nazareth,  but  with  which  he  had  probably  some  con- 
nection as  so  much  of  his  time  was  spent  there.  His 
mother,  perceiving  that  his  life  was  now  to  be  shaped  on 
other  lines,  possibly  as  the  time  went  on  abandoned  her 
household  and  followed  him  there  in  order  to  care  for 
the  wants  of  external  necessity  ;  or  still  more  probably, 
her  husband  being  dead,  was  naturally  devoted  to  the  care 
of  her  son  and  transferred  herself  to  the  place  that  suited 
him  best.  At  the  present  moment,  however,  she  was  prob- 
ably still  resident  in  Nazareth,  and  he  travelling  towards  that 
lowly  dwelling-place  when  he  paused  at  the  village  of  Cana 
to  attend  the  marriage  feast.  "  Both  Jesus  was  called  and 
His  disciples  to  the  marriage,"  which  was  probably  an 
important  event  in  the  countryside,  though  the  bridegroom 
was  no  wealthy  inhabitant,  but  only  a  kindly  connection 
or  neighbour  of  the  same  humble  position  as  his  guests. 

Perhaps  it  was  to  give  his  attendance  at  this  feast, 
the  wedding  of  some  one  who  had  been  a  companion  of  his 
childhood,  that  Jesus  paused  on  his  way  from  the  baptism 
in  Jordan  to  his  own  home.  Recent  researches  of  the 
Palestine  Exploration  oflficcrs,  most  interesting  of  all 
investigations  into  the  past,  have  discovered  a  spot  on 
Jordan  still  bearing  the  name  of  Abarah,  so  like  the 
Bathabara  of  the  narrative  that  it  makes  the  transition 
from  the  Baptism  to  the  Lake  of  Galilee  the  easiest  possible, 
instead  of  a  long  journey  as  has  been  supposed,  from  the 
scene  near  Jericho  long  identified  with  this  event.  Perhaps 
after  their   first  parting,  and  his   assumption    of  his  office, 


4o6  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

it  was  at  Cana  that  the  Virgin  met  her  son,  her  heart 
full  of  anxiety  and  insecurity,  seeing  that  a  great  change 
had  occurred,  wistful,  not  knowing  yet  what  it  was.  She 
must  have  been  aware  of  this  change,  or  she  would  not  have 
given  that  humble  hint  about  the  wine.  What  did  she 
know  ?  Had  there  been  already  some  strange  blessing  in 
the  house .  in  Nazareth  upon  all  that  his  .sacred  hand 
touched,  though,  perhaps,  no  one  had  noticed  except  the 
ever- watchful  eyes  which  followed  him  wherever  he  went, 
never  intermitting  that  tender  vigilance,  still  and  always 
eager  to  know  what  the  secret  of  his  birth  and  of  himself, 
so  different  from  any  other,  could  mean  ?  Was  she  already 
aware  in  an  awe  of  unassured  faith,  ever  wondering,  of 
some  mysterious  supply,  some  strange  waxing  of  the 
needed  stores  at  home  ?  And  it  is  strange  to  note  that 
he  did  not  consent  in  words,  did  not  reply  as  he  did  to  the 
many  poor  supplicants  that  came  after,  with  divine  courtesy 
and  patience  ;  but  almost  we  may  imagine  in  his  knowledge 
of  the  dangers  of  the  future,  and  the  position  of  goddess 
which  was  to  be  forced  upon  that  humble  woman,  with  a 
little  sternness  forbidding  her  interference.  And  there  is  no 
appearance  that  he  did  it  as  any  proof  or  sign  of  his  own 
power,  but  rather  out  of  pure  kindness  to  the  poor  cousin 
whose  popularity  must  have  been  so  much  greater  than  his 
wealth,  who  had  asked  everybody,  but  could  only  supply  a 
little  for  their  entertainment.  Mary  must  have  had  some 
authority  as  of  a  relation  or  she  could  not  have  bidden  the 
servants  to  obey  him.  But  he  made  no  mystic  sign,  said 
no  word,  awaited  no  thanks.  The  mother  saw,  whose 
anxious  eyes  were  never  long  absent  from  him,  and  the 
disciples  saw  who  had  followed  him,  by  some  attraction 
they  scarcely  understood,  who  watched  eagerly  all  his 
movements,  to  justify  to  themselves  the  step  they  had 
taken.  There  is  no  appearance  that  except  by  those  two 
the  miracle  called  for  anything  more  than  a  little  wonder, 
as  to  where  the  astonished  bridegroom  could  have  got  it, 
that  marvellous  wine. 

There   has  been    little    said,   I    think,  among  the  many 


THE  SON  OF  DA  VI D  407 


discussions  of  the  supernatural,  of  the  entire  naturalness  of 
these  miracles.  The  initiatory  miracle  of  all  is,  of  course, 
the  Person  by  whom  they  are  performed  ;  and  if  it  can  be 
proved  that  there  have  been  others  like  him  in  this  world, 
and  that  the  records  of  history  contain  another  who, 
according  to  the  common  judgment  of  humanity,  may  be 
placed  by  his  side  or  near  him,  then  I  have  no  doubt  the 
lesser  argument  might  come  in  :  but  granted  the  far  greater 
miracle  of  the  two,  the  extreme  naturalness  of  the  others  is, 
I  think,  to  a  simple  -mind,  the  most  wonderful  thing  about 
them.  We  are  disposed  nowadays  to  smile  at  them  as 
proofs,  feeling  that  our  Lord  is  his  own  transcendent  proof 
and  that  in  his  great  presence  it  is  a  kind  of  well-meant 
and  pious  blasphemy  to  produce  any  testimonials  as  it  were 
to  his  character.  The  Christian  of  the  nineteenth  century 
would  probably  be  easier  in  his  mind  if  the  miracles  were  put 
out  of  the  question,  being  a  man  of  his  time,  as  the  writers 
who  recorded  them  were  men  of  their  time  and  loved  every 
detail  of  every  prodigy.  But  even  that  sentiment  it  appears 
to  me  is  wrong,  and  calculated  to  take  away  something 
from  the  benignity  of  that  Friend  who  was  what  no  other 
man  or  friend  has  ever  been.  How  could  he  hold  his  hand 
being  what  he  was  ?  how  refuse  what  those  helpless  neigh- 
bours wanted,  whether  wine  for  their  feast  or,  still  more, 
healing  for  their  sick }  Healing  could  not  but  ray  out 
of  him  as  he  moved,  as  tenderness  did,  and  love,  and 
thought  of  everything  great  and  small  that  appealed  to 
his  help.  And  it  was  such  a  little  time  in  which  that  was 
possible,  in  which  the  power  of  God  and  the  visible  acts  of 
man  were  to  be  conjoined  !  I  have  thought  often  that 
when  "Jesus  wept"  at  the  grave  of  Lazarus,  those  tears 
were  called  forth  not  by  the  thought  of  him  who  lay  there 
in  his  cave  ready  to  rise,  but  of  the  many,  many  myriads  of 
graves  at  which  women  must  fling  themselves  unsuccoured, 
and  endure  that  from  which  Mary  and  Martha  were  set  free. 
We  must  all  recognise,  and  how  much  more  he,  that  the 
laws  of  Nature  must  go  on  in  general,  that  death  must  be 
a  thing  of  every  day,  and  mourning  the  garb  of  half  the 


THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY 


world,  until  the  course  of  our  dispensation  is  fulfilled.  But 
for  the  moment,  while  he  was  there,  whose  deep  sense  of 
that  great  mystery  brought  tears  to  his  eyes  even  in  the  act 
of  greatest  joy !  The  alms  of  a  rich  man  to  the  poor, 
whether  given  with  the  unreflecting  liberality  of  ancient 
time  or  with  the  more  cautious  enthusiasm  of  charity  which 
prevails  now,  were  not  more  natural,  not  more  simple,  than 
these  works  of  wonder — wonder  to  those  who  crowded 
about  him,  and  felt  and  saw,  but  the  natural  outcome  of 
his  presence,  as  natural  as  breathing,  as  simple  as  the  day. 

It  was  probably  the  yearly  period  at  which  all  Galilee 
was  being  moved  to  go  up  to  the  feast  when  that  marriage 
took  place,  and  Mary  of  Nazareth  might  have  preceded  her 
party  but  a  few  days  for  the  wedding,  and  joined  the 
gathering  troop  as  they  went  by,  with  her  son,  and  those 
young  men  of  the  country  who  had  attached  themselves  to 
him  and  who  followed  wherever  he  went.  Jesus  had,  no 
doubt,  gone  up  many  times  to  Jerusalem  in  the  interval 
between  his  appearance  there  as  a  boy  and  his  present 
journey,  silent,  fulfilling  all  righteousness,  looking  with 
patience  upon  the  defilements  of  the  Temple,  his  time  being 
not  yet  come.  And  it  is  possible  enough  that  the  interest 
awakened  by  that  boyish  apparition  may  have  faded  away 
in  the  quiet  of  the  years  as  the  bystanders  perceived  that  the 
precocious  boy  was  going  no  farther,  but  had  sunk  into  the 
stillness  of  life  as  so  many  promising  talents  do.  It  might 
already  be  thought  by  some  with  disappointment  that  they 
hoped  it  was  to  have  been  he  who  should  have  redeemed 
Israel.  This  might  probably  cause  still  a  certain  curiosity 
about  his  presence,  a  lingering  desire  to  know  whether  after 
all  the  prophecy  of  old  Simeon  was  to  mean  anything, 
among  the  devout  frequenters  of  the  Temple.  But  thirty 
years  is  a  long  time,  and  so,  indeed,  is  the  eighteen  which  had 
elapsed  without  any  incident,  since  that  Galilean  boy  had 
stood  among  the  scribes  and  asked  them  questions.  He 
had  been  seen  going  and  coming  s'ince  like  the  others,  paying 
his  tithe,  making  his  offering:  as  now  he  came,  but  with  some 
rousing  of  popular  curiosity,  some  rumour  of  new  wonders, 


THE  SON  OF  DA  V/D 


409 


and   that    band  behind,  closely  following  him,   breathlessly 
watching  everything  he  did. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  determine  whether  Jesus  made  that 
scourge  of  small  cords  the  first  time  he  came  to  the  Temple 
after  he  had  taken  his  ministry  upon  him,  as  well  as  on 
a  later  occasion  :  or  whether  St.  John's  account  has  got 
completely  out  of  chronology  as  other  incidents  are  in  that 
and  the  other  gospels,  from  the  fragmentary  character  of  the 
record.  But  it  is  evident  that  whether  he  assailed  the 
money-changers    and    sacrifice  -  merchants     upon    that    first 


LAKE   OF  UALILEE  :    THE   HORNS   OF    HATTIN,    ON   WHICH   THE  SERMON    ON   THE   MOUNT 
WAS   PREACHED,    IN   THE  DISTANCE 


occasion  or  not  he  greatly  roused  the  curiosity  and  interest 
of  the  people.  On  "the  feast  day  " — no  doubt  that  which  is 
described  on  other  occasions  as  "  the  great  day  of  the  feast " 
— when  the  sacrifices  had  been  accomplished,  and  the  crowd 
of  joyful  pilgrims  and  inhabitants  had  spread  themselves 
over  all  the  courts  of  the  Temple  in  enjoyment  of  the 
holiday,  the  young  prophet  from  the  north  would  seem  to 
have  been  the  centre  of  wonder.  Saying  little  as  yet. 
scarcely  coming  out  of  the  character  of  observer  and  spectator, 
he  yet  could  not  withhold  his  divine  hand  from  bestowing 
those  alms  of  healing  and  miracle  which  at  last,  after  the 
long  and  quiet  probation  of  his  youth,  he  had  begun  to 
dispense   so  liberally.      "  Many  believed   in  his    name  when 


4IO  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

they  saw  the  miracles  he  did.  But  Jesus  did  not  commit 
himself  unto  them,  because  he  knew  all  men,  and  needed 
not  that  any  should  testify  of  man  :  for  he  knew  what  was 
in  man."  This  is  one  of  St.  John's  pregnant  sayings  full  of 
the  inner  knowledge  which  came  to  him  by  long  pondering 
upon  the  recollections  of  that  sacred  period.  It  was  not 
according  to  the  designs  of  Providence  that  he  should  be 
forced  into  notoriety,  that  the  end  of  the  great  tragedy 
should  be  hastened,  as  might  have  been  had  all  the  passions 
of  an  urban  crowd  been  aroused,  so  different  from  the 
enthusiasm,  more  slowly  growing  and  less  impassioned,  of 
the  simpler  peasants.  And  the  crowd  at  Jerusalem  was 
essentially  fanatic.  The  city  lived  by  its  sacred  character, 
and  the  sale  of  the  sacrifices  must  have  been  like  the  sale  of 
indulgences  in  mediaeval  Rome.  It  was  the  centre  of 
religious  agitations  also,  and  there  was  nothing,  the  population 
loved  so  much  as  controversy  and  the  long-drawn  quibbles 
about  the  law,  and  questions  of  form  and  ceremonial. 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  had  many  things  yet  to  do  before  he 
came  to  the  concluding  scene  of  all,  and  this  is  a  strong 
argument  against  the  occurrence  of  a  preliminary  driving 
out  of  the  traffickers  in  the  Temple  which  would  have  made 
a  commotion  in  the  city,  such  as  he  does  not  seem  to  have 
desired  so  early  in  his  career.^ 

We  may  be  allowed  in  all  reverence  to  imagine  the 
manner  of  this  first  public  visit  to  Jerusalem.  If  the  full 
revelation  of  his  own  mission  had  only  been  opened  out 
to  his  manhood  after  the  Baptism,  as  seems  to  be  indicated, 
the  previous  glimpses  and  intuitions  of  divinity  rising  at  once 
into   full   manifestation  :   our   Lord   must  now  have  begun  to 

1  I  may  be  permitted  to  add  that  in  the  attempts  at  chronological  arrange- 
ment that  follow,  I  have  endeavoured  to  place  myself  in  the  position  of  one  who 
reads  that  narrative  for  the  first  time,  and  places  the  different  incidents  in  what 
seems  to  him  a  natural  succession  :  not  only  with  no  authority  but  with  no  desire 
to  claim  any  knowledge  beyond  that  of  a  reader  accustomed  to  literary  criticism, 
and  to  note  the  sequence  of  natural  events.  I  ask  the  indulgence  of  any  Biblical 
critic  who  may  read  the  book  on  this  ground  alone.  I  have  not  attempted  to 
reconcile  my  impressions  with  those  of  any  authoritative  teaching.  They  are 
those  of  a  reader,  not  of  a  teacher  :  sometimes,  perhaps,  in  the  audacity  of 
ignorance  over  bold  :  but  without  any  pretension  except  to  the  simplest  individual 
apprehension  of  facts  which  are  open  to  all. 


CHAP.  I  THE  SON  OF  DAVID  411 

regard  the  Temple  and  the  city  which  had  hitherto  been  to 
him  the  "Father's  House" — in  which  he  had  fulfilled  all 
the  commanded  rites,  and  performed  the  duties  incumbent 
upon  all  pious  Hebrews — in  a  different  aspect.  This 
wonderful  Temple,  the  pride  of  the  nation,  was  henceforward 
a  thing  about  to  dissolve  and  melt  away.  It  was  to  be 
destroyed  which  had  cost  so  many  years  in  building :  but  in 
three  days  another  temple,  the  temple  of  his  body,  was  to 
be  raised  up  ;  the  temporal  was  about  to  give  way  to  the 
spiritual.  All  that  elaborate  system  of  types,  of  substitutions, 
of  sacrifice,  the  ransom  by  blood  that  had  to  be  paid  for 
every  Israelite,  was  coming  to  an  end.  The  temple  of  his 
body  could  only  be  builded  by  the  preliminaries  of  his 
death.  As  he  went  musing,  silent,  about  those  echoing 
courts  with  the  hum  of  many  voices  round  him,  he  must  have 
already  seen  all  the  stranger,  darker  scenes  that  were  so 
soon  to  be.  It  was  natural  that  he  should  say  little  in  that 
realisation  of  everything  that  was  to  follow,  the  winding  up 
of  the  dispensation  that  looked  so  firmly  established,  the 
grimness  of  its  death-struggle,  the  obstinacy  of  its  self- 
destruction  :  with,  in  the  meantime  against  that  background 
of  blood  and  fire,  the  dread  scene  of  his  own  abandonment 
at  once  by  God  and  man,  the  loneliness  of  the  Cross,  the 
struggle  of  the  Agony. 

All  this  must  have  appeared  to  him  as  he  moved  about, 
followed  ever  by  the  impetuous  Peter,  who  would  not  keep 
silent,  by  John  intent  upon  his  every  look,  and  the  strong, 
untutored  fisher,  Andrew,  like  some  Scotch  salt-water  sea-dog 
in  London,  wondering  with  a  half  disapproval,  half  worship, 
over  the  splendours  of  the  Temple.  One  wonders  if  it  may 
not  have  been  now,  and  not  at  a  later  period,  that  the  dis- 
ciples, probably  "  those  of  Jerusalem,"  who  had  been  attracted 
by  the  sight  of  his  unrecorded  miracles,  the  droppings  from 
him  of  divine  tenderness  as  he  walked,  "  came  to  him  for 
to  show  him  the  buildings  of  the  Temple."  Probably  these 
men  were  privileged  persons,  able  to  take  the  little  band  of 
strangers  from  Galilee  into  places  not  always  open,  perhaps 
Nicodemus   among  them,  whom  he  had  so  sorely  bewildered 


412  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

by  that  strange  statement  about  the  second  birth,  and  who 
would  hsten  eagerly  to  hear  the  Master's  comment  on  this 
pride  of  the  Jewish  heart.  And  what  strange  words  were 
those  which  came  from  the  young  Rabbi's  lips  ?  "  There 
shall  not  be  left  here  one  stone  upon  another  that  shall  not 
be  thrown  down."  What  an  incredible,  impossible  thing  to 
say !  Herod's  Temple  stood  in  all  its  splendour  before 
them,  with  its  magnificent  cloister,  its  beautiful  gate,  all  the 
wonderful  architecture  of  it,  strong  as  the  rock  on  which  it 
stood — the  courts  full  both  of  Jews  and  proselytes,  every 
entry  to  the  enclosure,  every  gate,  filled  with  a  moving, 
bright -coloured  crowd.  Perhaps  the  cicerones  and  eager 
guides  scarcely  heard  this  sentence  in  the  eagerness  of  their 
explanations,  and  it  was  not  till  the  little  band  of  closest 
friends  went  out  to  the  Mount  of  Olives,  and  sat  there  round 
him,  gazing  upon  the  shining  walls  where  Jerusalem  lay  fair 
in  the  sun,  that  he  explained  to  them  what  he  meant. 
His  human  heart  was  sore  for  that  dreadful  necessity.  Far 
more  than  of  what  he  was  himself  to  suffer  did  he  think 
of  this,  returning  to  it  with  an  anguish  of  lamentation  again 
and  again.  O  Jerusalem  !  Jerusalem  !  to  which  every  heart 
had  turned,  of  which  the  captives  in  Babylon  prayed  that 
their  right  hand  might  forget  its  cunning  if  ever  they  forgot 
her,  their  chief  joy — and  which  that  little  band  of  pilgrims 
had  approached,  singing  as  they  paced  along  the  lingering 
ways,  by  Jordan  and  Jericho,  from  their  lake  side,  that  Sion 
was  the  joy  of  the  whole  earth,  and  that  they  were  glad 
when  it  was  said  to  them  :  "  Let  us  go  up  into  the  house  of 
the  Lord."  With  what  awe  would  they  hear,  looking  over 
the  valley  at  those  white  pinnacles  and  the  great  walls 
dazzling  in  the  sunshine !  though  they  probably  soon  forgot 
that  impression  with  the  unconscious  incredulity  of  nature, 
and  felt  that  what  was  before  them  must  still  continue  to  be, 
indefinitely,  notwithstanding  that  the  sentence  was  so  true. 

It  would  appear  from  the  narrative  of  St.  John  that 
Jesus  and  His  disciples  lingered  in  Judea  for  some  time  after 
their  first  Passover,  and  that  these  disciples,  probably  eager 
to  get  to  work   at  that  occupation  promised  them  as  fishers 


CHAP.  I  THE  SON  OF  DA  VID  413 

of  men,  began  to  baptize  in  imitation  of  John,  two  of  them 
having  been  the  companions  of  John,  before  they  were 
drawn,  partly  by  his  advice,  partly  by  the  mysterious  attrac- 
tion of  our  Lord's  personality,  to  follow  him.  This  is  the 
only  indication  we  have  that  the  methods  of  John  the  Baptist 
were  ever  used  during  the  ministry  of  Jesus  ;  and  it  would 
seem  that  he  left  the  place  where  this  was  done,  possibly 
the  traditionary  spot  near  the  Jordan,  which  is  still  pointed 
out,  to  avoid  any  appearance  of  interference  with  John,  whose 
mission  had  not  yet  been  brought  to  an  end.  "When  the 
Lord  knew  how  the  Pharisees  had  heard  that  Jesus  made 
and  baptized  more  disciples  than  John  (though  Jesus  himself 
baptized  not,  but  his  disciples),  he  left  Judea." 

It  is  at  this  point  that  the  Evangelist  places  the  inter- 
view with  the  woman  of  Samaria.  Pursuing  their  way 
after  the  slow  method  of  those  times — still  the  method 
of  any  band  of  villagers  and  fishermen  returning  from 
Jerusalem  to  Galilee — the  travellers  went  through  Samaria  ; 
and  Jesus,  weary  with  the  journey,  sat  down  upon  the  wall 
which  surrounded  Jacob's  well,  in  the  height  of  the  afternoon, 
when  shade  and  quiet  are  specially  welcome.  It  was  not  an 
hour  when  the  chattering  throng  of  girls,  with  their  bright 
kerchiefs  on  their  heads,  would  come  to  the  fountain  :  for  it 
was,  no  doubt,  already  summer,  and  nobody  would  be  about 
who  could  help  it,  in  the  heat  of  the  day.  But  the  cool  of 
the  little  building  over  the  well,  the  grateful  damp  of  the 
watery  place,  would  be  comfortable  to  the  wayfarer,  and 
there,  no  doubt,  it  was  decided  to  make  their  halt,  while  the 
others  went  into  the  town  to  buy  something  for  their  meal. 
Thus  it  was  that  when  the  "  woman  of  Samaria,"  a  woman 
whom  the  other  women  avoided,  whom  the  girls  would  not 
be  permitted  to  speak  to,  came  out  at  an  unlikely  time  with 
her  pitcher,  she  found  that  Pilgrim  seated  there.  The  usual 
stream  of  pilgrims  must  have  all  passed  by  some  time  before, 
returning  to  their  homes  :  so  that  the  country  had  fallen 
back  into  the  ordinary  quiet  in  which  a  passer-by  was  some- 
thing to  wonder  at.  She  had  expected,  no  doubt,  the  usual 
scorn  of  the  Jew,  the  drawing  away  of  mantle  and  robe,  lest 


414  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

any  contact  with  her  very  unpolemical  figure  should  sully  the 
orthodoxy  of  the  Judean.  But  the  aspect  of  this  Traveller 
was  not  as  that  of  other  men.  He  asked  her,  to  her  great 
astonishment,  to  let  him  drink  from  her  pitcher,  and  after  he 
had  received  that  simple  favour  sat  still  and  talked  with  her 
as  none  had  ever  done  before.;  neither  because  she  was  a 
Samaritan,  nor  because  she  was  a  shamed  and  sullied  woman, 
did  this  traveller  despise  her.  She  was,  probably,  no  ordinary 
woman,  or  she  would  not  have  responded  to  him  as  she  did, 
or  understood  as  she  seems  to  have  done.  When  the  dis- 
ciples came  back  their  attitude  was  a  very  curious  one.  They 
were  still,  we  may  believe,  so  little  familiar  with  their  Master, 
having  so  recently  thrown  in  their  lot  with  him,  that  some- 
thing of  timidity  mingled  with  the  awe  which  they  never 
ceased  to  feel  :  they  did  not  dare  to  interfere  in  this  strange 
dialogue  which  was  going  on,  or  to  ask  "  Why  talkest  thou 
with  her  ? "  Neither  did  they  venture  to  inquire  afterwards 
what  had  been  the  cause  of  the  conversation.  When  she 
went  away  they  laid  their  little  supply  before  him  and 
begged  him  to  eat.  But  again,  when  he  replied,  "  I  have 
meat  to  eat  ye  know  not  of,"  the  confusion  of  their  surprise 
was  so  great  that  they  knew  not  what  to  say.  Had  any  one 
brought  the  Master  food  while  they  were  absent  ?  W^hat  had 
happened  to  restore  him  from  his  weariness  ?  Again  and 
again  this  wistful  wonder  appears  in  the  narrative.  Even  at 
the  end,  after  they  have  walked  in  his  steps  and  listened  to  his 
words  for  the  three  years  of  his  public  career,  the  apostles 
still  watch  his  looks  to  discover  what  he  means,  with  the 
same  anxious  bewilderment  of  spirit.  And  when  he  bade 
them  lift  up  their  eyes  and  behold  the  fields  which  were 
already  white  to  the  harvest,  they  did  so,  no  doubt,  wonder- 
ing, looking  dumbly  at  the  waving  corn,  slow  to  understand 
that  these  Samaritans,  who  were  by  this  time  coming  out 
from  the  town,  full  of  curiosity  to  see  him  who  had  told 
their  neighbour  all  that  ever  she  did — were  the  harvest 
which  he  meant. 

It  is  not  till  another  year  that  we  find  Jesus  again  in 
Jerusalem,  and  once  more  the  record  is  that  of  St.  John.      It 


THE  SON  OF  DA  VID  415 


is  at  "  a  feast "  not  specified,  which  would  make  it  appear 
that  it  was  not  the  Passover.  Jesus  had  entered  upon  the 
wandering  life  of  a  prophet  and  teacher,  and  was  no  longer 
bound  by  the  homely  routine  of  living  which  kept  the  one 
great  feast  of  the  year,  the  common  Sacrament  of  the  Jewish 
faith,  but  had  not  the  means  of  going  to  all.  To  him  it  was 
now  desirable  that  he  should  carry  his  message  not  only 
among  the  quiet  ways  of  Galilee,  but  wherever  the  people 
were  gathered  together  :  and  his  journeys  to  Jerusalem  were 
probably  many.  It  might  be  as  he  was  entering  the  city 
that  he  passed  through  the  sheep-gate  at  the  north-eastern 
corner  of  the  Temple  enclosure,  the  gate  by  which  the  "  lambs 
for  the  slaughter,"  the  sheep  of  the  daily  sacrifice,  were 
brought  in,  a  touching  coincidence.  Near  to  that  spot  lay 
the  pool,  supplied  by  what  is  now  called  the  fountain  of  the 
Virgin  in  the  vale  of  the  Kedron,  a  bubbling  intermittent 
spring,  mineral  water  as  is  now  explained,  a  pool  in  which  heal- 
ing was  a.s.serted  to  be  found.  It  is  identified  by  tradition 
with  the  Birket  Israel,  a  deep  pool  much  choked  up  by  rubbish, 
which  lies  close  under  the  north-east  angle  of  the  Temple 
wall  ;  but  I  believe  that  another  situation  has  been  suggested 
near  the  present  Church  of  St.  Anne,  by  recent  explorations. 
A  line  of  arched  cloisters,  a  little  colonnade,  supported 
on  five  .sets  of  pillars,  the  "  five  porches"  of  our  translation, 
was  on  the  bank,  with  steps  descending  to  the  water — 
a  beautiful  feature  of  Eastern  architecture,  very  usual 
and  especially  necessary  where  .so  much  ablution  is  u.sed. 
Underneath  the  shade  of  the.se  arches  lay  the  sick  folk 
who  were  waiting  for  the  "  troubling  of  the  water,"  the 
effervescence  and  influx,  as  now  explained,  of  the  spring. 
Jesus  and  his  followers  passing  by,  strangers  arriving  from 
Bethany  or  some  other  of  the  villages  near,  or  taking  the 
quiet  walk  of  a  Sabbath  day's  journey  to  that  favourite  olive 
garden  on  the  other  side  of  the  brook,  which  was  .so  good  a 
place  of  repose  after  the  crowds  of  the  city,  ascended  into 
the  grateful  shade  and  coolness  of  the  little  arcade.  And 
there  in  the  stillness  of  the  Sabbath,  no  cure  to  be  hoped  for 
on  that  day,  lay  the  poor  man  on  his  carpet,  who  had  spent 


41 6  THE  FINAL  TRAGEDY  part  iv 

SO  great  a  part  of  his  life  awaiting  the  miracle.  It  is  impos- 
sible not  to  feel  that  he  was  not  a  very  worthy  object  of 
charity  as  we  say,  seeing  that  one  of  the  earliest  uses  of  his 
restored  strength  was  to  denounce  his  deliverer  to  the  enemy. 
But  the  eye  of  the  Lord  fell  upon  him  as  he  lay  in  his 
abandonment  of  misery.  He  might  be  the  only  sick  man 
there,  the  others  having  been  carried  home  who  had  friends, 
lest  they  should  be  tempted  to  shuffle  down  into  the  water 
and  get  themselves  healed  on  the  Sabbath  day.  But  thirty- 
eight  years  lying  there,  waiting,  with  no  one  to  help  him, 
shows  a  man  sadly  without  friends,  perhaps  an  altogether 
destitute  person — and  the  Divine  pity  is  as  the  rain  which 
falls  upon  the  just  and  unjust.  "  Rise,  take  up  thy  bed  and 
walk,"  said  the  Saviour.  The  miracle  had  come  to  him  who 
was  unable  to  go  to  it,  even  so  far  as  the  descent  of  these  steps. 
This  would  seem  to  have  been  the  beginning  of  the  great 
Sabbath  controversy,  if  we  may  use  the  words.  The  man 
as  he  hurried  away  with  his  roll  of  rugs,  was  caught  at  once 
by  the  spiritual  police  that  abounded  on  every  side.  They 
might  according  to  the  rigour  of  the  law  have  stoned  him  for 
this  transgression  :  though  it  does  not  seem  that  any  such 
tragical  intention  was  ever  in  their  thoughts  ;  but  they  caught 
and  spoke  to  him  roughly,  reminding  him  what  day  it  was, 
and  that  it  was  unlawful  to  go  into  the  town,  as  he  probably 
was  doing,  with  that  large  bundle.  A  Scotch  policeman  would 
have  done  much  the  same  thing  forty  or  fifty  years  ago. 
Jesus  had  passed  on  his  way,  threading  through  the  busy 
crowds  in  the  gate,  avoiding  further  question,  probably  for 
that  prevailing  reason  that  his  time  was  not  yet :  and  the 
man  did  not  know  who  the  beneficent  visitor  was  who 
had  bidden  him  to  arise  and  go.  When  he  met  at  a  later 
date  his  deliverer  in  the  Temple,  Jesus  admonished  him 
as  he  never  did  on  any  other  occasion  of  the  kind  :  "  Sin 
no  more,  lest  a  worse  thing  come  unto  thee."  And  the 
ungrateful  cripple  used  his  recovered  limbs  to  hurry  forth 
and  tell  the  religious  persecutors  who  it  was  who  had  cured 
him,  i.e.  made  him  guilty  of  the  sin  of  carrying  his  bed  on 
the  Sabbath  day. 


THE  SON  OF  DA  VI D  417 


The  grave  yet  gentle  dignity  of  our  Lord's  warning  is 
very  remarkable.  It  would  be  hard  to  say  whether  it  was 
the  spontaneousncs.s  of  his  tender  charity  which  had  flowed 
forth  without  recollection,  as  we  might  say,  of  the  Sabbath ; 
or  whether  it  was  by  intention  that  he  thus  opened  the  sub- 
ject. There  had  been  an  exemption  from  the  severe  law  of 
the  Sabbath  in  its  earliest  institution,  for  works  of  necessity 
and  mercy  ;  but  the  Jew  formalists  had  improved  upon  the 
law,  knowing  no  better  spiritual  way  than  to  bind  these 
ceremonial  restrictions  tighter,  making  of  it,  as  has  been 
already  said,  a  god  in  the  place  of  their  old  idols  whom 
they  had  outgrown.  Most  likely  the  apostles  themselves 
were  startled  at  the  breach  of  the  rigid  bond  which  was 
one  of  the  most  marked  points  of  the  Jewish  economy  ; 
but  here  there  was  no  explanation  given  as  of  the  parables 
that  puzzled  them,  no  announcement  of  a  change  of  plan. 
It  is  curious  to  remark,  in  passing,  that  there  was  evidently 
no  objection  on  the  part  of  the  Jews  to  the  dinner-parties 
and  entertainments  of  the  Sabbath.  These  were  permitted  : 
it  was  the  healing  that  was  objected  to.  The  modern 
champions  of  the  Sabbatic  law  act  in  a  contrary  sense,  and 
would,  no  doubt,  permit  the  healing  were  it  possible,  but  not 
the  feasts. 

It  would  seem  to  have  been  on  this  occasion  that  Jesus 
for  the  first  time  began  to  teach  in  Jerusalem.  And  it  is 
remarkable  to  note  at  once  the  changed  tone  of  his  discourse. 
He  speaks  not  as  he  spoke  in  Galilee,  instituting  a  new 
economy  of  life,  that  enlarged  and  altered  code  of  the  Gospel, 
the  supreme  rule  for  the  thoughts  and  the  heart,  which  flowed 
from  him,  distilling  like  the  dew,  in  the  early  dawn  of  his 
ministry,  a  new  revelation,  full  of  tenderness  towards  men,  if 
also  of  the  unfailing  conflict  between  good  and  evil,  the  choice 
betwixt  God  and  mammon.  But  the  Jews  of  Jerusalem 
were  a  very  different  kind  of  audience.  In  those  courts  of 
the  Temple,  where  he  now  became  a  familiar  figure,  the 
eager  crowd  which  surrounded  him  was  essentially  a  polemi- 
cal crowd,  defenders  and  champions  of  the  faith.  Foremost 
among  them  would    be   the  keen    and   subtle   faces  of  the 

2  V. 


41 8  THE  FINAL  TRAGEDY  part  iv 

doctors,  ever  ready  to  draw  him  into  controversy,  the  scribes 
with  their  trained  and  critical  wits,  the  scornful  Pharisees 
with  their  broad  phylacteries.  The  record  at  once  becomes 
that  of  a  prolonged  argument,  controversy  rather  than  teach- 
ing. No  room  nor  possibility  here  for  any  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  no  tender  lingering  of  parable  and  similitude,  of  the 
images  drawn  from  that  smiling  nature  around,  the  sower 
sowing  in  the  field,  the  white  tower  shining  on  the  hill.  To 
Nicodemus  he  had  already  abandoned  that  milder  ground, 
and  spoken  of  a  change  so  fundamental  that  it  was  not  too 
much  to  say,  "  Ye  must  be  born  again  "  ;  and  when  he  takes 
his  seat  in  those  high  places  of  Jerusalem,  it  is  without 
hesitation  or  delay  to  put  forth  his  own  great  claim,  and 
assert  his  mission  in  the  most  uncompromising  tones,  while 
the  highest  intelligences  of  Israel  stood  listening  round,  eager 
to  argue,  to  object,  to  prove  him  wrong.  "  My  Father 
worketh  hitherto,  and  I  work  "  are  almost  the  first  words  that 
reach  our  ears  from  that  eminence  and  centre  of  Israel :  and 
it  is  very  clear  that  the  Jews  put  no  figurative  interpretation 
upon  them.  It  did  not  occur  to  them,  as  it  does  to  modern 
interpreters,  that  Jesus  spoke  as  any  devout  man  might  do 
who  felt  God  to  be  his  Father.  They  charged  him  imme- 
diately with  blasphemy,  because  he  said  "  that  God  was  his 
Father,  making  himself  equal  with  God."  Thus  at  once  the 
great  controversy  was  opened,  with  no  compromise  on  either 
side.  He  was  not  shocked  at  the  imputation  of  that  blas- 
phemy, as  a  good  man  without  any  divine  claim  would  be. 
Such  a  one  would  not  have  wasted  a  word  on  any  other 
subject  till  he  had  cleared  himself  from  this.  But  our  Lord 
accepts  and  proceeds  to  demonstrate  the  truth  of  his  claim. 

In  the  great  confusion  of  the  chronology  it  is  difficult 
to  assign  to  each  incident  and  still  more  to  each  discourse 
its  right  place.  The  address  which  follows  the  healing  of 
the  impotent  man  in  the  record  of  John  (John  v.  19  to  the 
end),  and  which  would  seem  to  be  the  first  address  given  in 
Jerusalem,  will  probably  appear  to  the  natural  student  from 
internal  evidence  rather  to  have  followed  such  an  event  as 
that  of  the  raising  of  Lazarus.      "  As  the  Father  raiseth  up 


THE  SON  OF  DAVID  419 


the  dead,  and  quickeneth  them  ;  even  so  the  Son  quickeneth 
whom  he  will."  "  The  hour  is  coming,  and  now  is,  when  the 
dead  shall  hear  the  voice  of  the  Son  of  God."  What  could 
be  more  appropriate  than  this  had  it  been  said  after  the 
miracle  of  Bethany  ?  It  is  rash  for  an  ignorant  person, 
unacquainted  even  with  the  laws  of  Scripture  criticism  and 
taking  the  history  of  the  gospels  like  any  other  old  and 
irregularly  constructed  history,  to  venture  upon  a  suggestion  ; 
but  it  seems  to  me  that  in  a  natural  sense  the  address  which 
is  given  in  the  seventh  chapter  of  St.  John  (vii.  16-24), 
as  delivered  on  a  later  occasion,  would  be  more  appropriate, 
if  it  were  substituted  here  for  the  wonderful  discourse  which 
I  have  had  the  boldness  to  say  appears  rather  to  have 
followed  such  a  miracle  as  that  of  the  raising  of  Lazarus. 
When  our  Lord  says  "  I  have  done  one  work,  and  ye  all 
marvel,"  his  words  seem  to  bear  a  natural  reference  to 
something  just  performed  of  which  all  minds  were  full, 
rather  than  to  an  incident  which,  though  unique  in  their 
experience  and  of  the  highest  popular  interest,  had  happened 
several  months  before.  It  is  true  that  it  was  wonderful 
enough  to  have  recurred  to  every  one  upon  his  next 
appearance,  and  to  have  raised  again  the  former  commotion  : 
yet  the  words  would  be  still  more  appropriate  if  it  had  just 
occurred  and  was  the  marvel  of  the  moment  in  all  men's 
minds.  "  Why  are  ye  angry  at  me  because  I  have  made 
a  man  every  whit  whole  on  the  Sabbath  day  ?  "  he  asks,  that 
question  evidently  being  uppermost  in  the  minds  of  his 
hearers.  It  might,  no  doubt,  have  come  back  to  them,  in 
the  great  and  sudden  popular  excitement  which  blazed  up 
on  the  sudden  reappearance  in  the  Temple  of  the  great 
Sabbath-breaker,  he  who  had  so  boldly  set  the  law  at 
defiance.  I  do  not  know  enough  of  Biblical  criticism  to  be 
aware  whether  such  a  suggestion  has  ever  been  made 
before.  I  venture  upon  it  solely  from  a  literary  and  natural 
point  of  view.  It  looks  like  a  speech  delivered  on  the 
moment,  while  still  nobody  was  able  to  forget  that  extra- 
ordinary act,  and  the  fact  almost  more  extraordinary  to  the 
common    people,   and    thrust    into    greater   importance   still 


420  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

by  the  rulers,  that  he  had  done  this,  a  thing  forbidden  on 
the  Sabbath  day. 

The  scene  of  this  conversation  and  address  was,  no  doubt, 
one  of  those  chambers  in  the  Temple  to  which  so  many 
references  are  made,  built  close  to  the  gate,  opening  prob- 
ably by  large  archways  or  windows  to  the  court,  so  that 
the  throng  of  worshippers  or  spectators  going  and  coming 
to  the  Temple  might  stop  and  listen  as  they  passed,  to  the 
argument  going  on  in  the  cool  depths  within.  Many  of  the 
discussions  given  in  St.  John's  narrative  must  have  occurred 
so,  a  band  of  the  priests  and  literati,  or  dark -robed 
Pharisees  who  were  prominent  in  the  society  of  Jerusalem 
— that  society  which  centred  in  the  Temple — sitting  about 
the  prophet  of  Galilee  whom  they  would  fain  have  con- 
demned but  could  not :  asking  him  now  one,  now  another 
artful  question  framed  to  catch  him  in  his  talk,  fixing 
upon  him  the  keen  attention  of  controversy,  continually 
baffled  and  silenced,  sometimes  touched  to  the  heart  like 
him  who  acknowledged  in  full  hearing  of  his  fellows,  that 
to  love  God  above  all,  and  one's  neighbour  as  one's  self, 
was  indeed  the  whole  law  and  the  prophets  in  one.  In  the 
absence  of  these  pundits,  the  commoner  crowd  would  but 
flock  round  the  more,  throwing  in  the  comment  of  ignorance  : 
"  Who  goeth  about  to  kill  thee  ?  "  while  the  dark  group  of 
humble  Galileans  stood  behind,  their  homely  sunburnt  faces 
gradually  growing  refined  and  expressive  with  all  they  were 
hearing  and  seeing,  the  company  in  which  they  spent  their 
lives  :  while  outside  of  all  the  multitude  came  and  went, 
sometimes  gathering  in  a  mass  when  the  voices  dropped, 
and  his  alone,  penetrating  yet  soft,  would  come  forth  upon 
the  air  thrilling  all  hearts,  though  with  an  argument  not 
addressed  to  the  crowd. 

After  this  scene  in  which  so  great  and  startling  a  depart- 
ure had  been  made  from  the  formal  traditions  of  the  Jews, 
strained  and  amplified  as  they  were  by  the  work  of  many 
generations  of  ritualists  upon  the  original  teachings  of  the 
law,  our  Lord  departed  from  Jerusalem  as  the  other  pilgrims 
would  do  and   returned   to  Galilee.      It  is  believed  that  the 


THE  SON  OF  DA  VID 


421 


commotion  roused  by  this  visit  was  so  great  that  he  did 
not  go  up  to  the  next  Passover,  but  continued  his  work 
upon  the  shores  of  his  favourite  lake,  and  among  the 
villages  and  towns  of  Galilee,  specially  in  the  great  city  of 
Capernaum,  and  the  district  about.  The  entire  district  of 
northern  Palestine,  indeed,  from  the  Mediterranean  to  the 
great  inland  lake,  which  was  of  more  importance  to  that 
country  than  the  sea,  was  familiar  with  his  footsteps  ; 
his  centre  of  movement  being  always  that  lake,  to 
the  banks  of  which  his  home  would  seem  to  have  been 
transferred   after  the  beginning  of  his   ministry.      But  when 


TIIIBRIAS:      LAKK   OF   GALILKK 


the  second  year  had  come  round  again  to  the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles  he  would  seem  to  have  been  taunted  with  his 
reluctance  to  go  to  Jerusalem.  "  His  brethren,"  relations 
incapable,  as  relations  so  often  are,  of  seeing  the  greatness 
of  One  whose  strange  superiority  it  was  a  sort  of  humiliation 
to  acknowledge,  urged  him  to  show  himself  to  the  world. 
"  For  there  is  no  man  that  doeth  anything  in  secret,  and  he 
himself  seeketh  to  be  known  openly."  The  centre  of  all 
things  was  Jerusalem,  and  no  revolution  such  as  that  which 
all  in  Galilee  must  now  have  been  aware  this  great  Prophet, 
whom  they  followed  with  so  much  wonder,  intended  to 
accomplish — could  be  carried  out  elsewhere  than  in  the 
capital  of  the  race.  The  disciples  never  .seem  to  have 
urged  or  even  suggested  any  such  step,  for  they  had  seen 
the  passions  roused  by  his  teaching,  the  fierce  opposition 
of  .scribe  and    Pharisee.      It  was   not   in   the  purpo.se  of  our 


422  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

Lord,  however,  to  go  up  again  with  that  cheerful  band, 
gathering  as  they  went  with  a  new  group  from  every 
village,  beguiling  the  way  with  song  and  story,  which  in 
his  earlier  youth  he  had  accompanied  so  often  "  to  keep  the 
feast."  But  when  the  great  caravan  had  departed  in  the 
gay  excitement  of  its  periodical  holiday,  and  with  all  the 
commotion  of  the  genial  expedition,  Jesus  and  his  followers 
took  their  way  alone  to  Jerusalem.  No  doubt  he  was  so 
well  known  by  this  time  and  caused  so  much  excitement 
wherever  he  went,  that  it  would  be  expedient  to  make 
the  journey  "  not  openly,  but  as  it  were  in  secret,"  that  he 
might  not  be  stopped  by  the  crowds  that  would  gather 
wherever  his  name  was  heard. 

In  the  meantime  he  had  been  looked  for  among  the 
pilgrims  in  every  band  that  arrived  from  the  north,  curious 
eyes,  no  doubt,  scanning  every  group,  and  those  of  Jerusalem 
asking  each  other  "  Where  is  he  ?  "  as  they  met  in  the  courts 
of  the  Temple,  in  the  rejoicings  of  the  feasts,  or  out  in  those 
green  arbours  which  were  planted  on  the  housetops  and  in  the 
open  spaces  of  the  streets,  watching  the  strangers  go  by  and 
greeting  their  friends  from  the  country.  "  Where  is  he  ?  " 
"  Think  you,  will  he  come  up  to  the  feast  ?  "  "  For  there  was 
much  murmuring  among  the  people  concerning  him  ;  "  and 
many  discussions  as  to  his  character  and  claims  among 
those  groups  in  the  leafy  tents.  "  Some  said  he  is  a  good 
man  :  others  said,  Nay ;  but  he  deceiveth  the  people. 
Howbeit  no  man  spake  openly  of  him  for  fear  of  the  Jews." 
The  Jews  here  mentioned,  as  in  all  the  accounts  of  the 
subsequent  story,  mean,  as  is  plain,  those  described  in  the 
Old  Testament  as  "  rulers "  or  "  princes,"  at  this  time  the 
Sanhedrim,  the  national  government,  a  body  made  up  of  the 
chief  priests,  the  scribes  or  interpreters  of  the  law,  lawyers 
or  disputers  on  that  all-prevailing  subject,  and  members  of 
that  strictest  sect  of  formalists  called  Pharisees.  The  members 
of  this  governing  body  were  not  all  pious,  though  their  very 
livelihood  depended  upon  the  piety  of  the  people.  They 
contained  within  themselves  the  lively  scepticism  of  the  cynic 
as  well   as  the  obstinate   formalism  of  bigotry  :    those    who 


CHAP.  I  THE  SON  OF  DA  VID  423 

held  all  religion  lightly  and  believed  neither  in  angel  nor 
spirit :  and  those  who  were  bent  on  binding  all  human  life 
in  the  bondage  of  a  detailed  and  exacting  system  to  which 
they  added  the  glosses  of  their  own  interpretation,  narrowing 
its  divinity  day  by  day.  And  they,  too,  no  doubt,  looked 
with  all  the  heat  and  eagerness  of  the  polemic  for  the 
appearance  of  that  new  and  strange  Teacher  whom  some 
of  them  had  already  met  in  the  Temple,  and  some  seen  and 
questioned  in  Galilee :  and  of  whom  so  many  additional 
rumours  of  mysterious  teachings  and  still  more  mysterious 
deeds  had  been  heard.  The  writer  of  the  gospel  did  not 
know  nor  does  he  suggest  what  was  passing  among  that 
learned  circle,  the  superior  classes  of  the  city.  He  knew 
the  "  murmurings  "  of  the  people,  the  questions  from  one  to 
another,  but  not  how  they  would .  ask  each  other  at  the 
meetings  of  the  Sanhedrim  "  Will  he  come  ?  " 

These  expectations  must  have  partially  died  away,  with, 
perhaps,  a  relieved  conviction  on  the  part  of  the  rulers  that 
he  would  not  again  confront  them  in  their  own  region  of 
the  Temple  with  questions  which  no  one  could  answer,  with 
replies  which  reduced  the  questioner  to  confusion,  when  Jesus 
suddenly  appeared  in  the  midst  of  the  feast.  The  popular 
discussion  which  had  dropped  for  the  moment  instantly 
arose  upon  the  reappearance  of  our  Lord  in  all  the  force 
of  the  most  graphic  narrative.  We  seem  to  hear  the  mur- 
mur and  rustic,  the  confusion  of  many  questions  to  which 
there  are  no  answers.  It  is  full  of  nature  and  life  and  the 
vacillations  of  the  popular  mind.  Those  who  had  whispered 
about  among  themselves  "  Where  is  he  ?  Will  he  come  ?  " 
and  said,  some  that  he  was  a  good  man,  some  that  he  was  a 
deceiver,  now  turned  upon  each  other  with  another  question  : 
"  Is  not  this  he  whom  they  .seek  to  kill  ?  But,  lo,  he  spcaketh 
boldly,  and  they  .say  nothing  to  him."  Among  the.sc  murmurs 
were  still  bolder  voices.  "  Do  the  rulers  know  indeed  that 
this  is  the  very  Christ  ?  "  and  others  in  the  crowd  who  added 
objections.  "  We  know  this  man  whence  he  is  :  but  when 
Christ  Cometh,  no  man  knoweth  whence  he  is."  Was  this, 
one  wonders,  from  .some  envious  pilgrim  of  Galilee,  and  did 


424  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

our  Lord  catch  the  famiHar  accent  as  he  passed  through  the 
crowd,  and  make  it  the  subject  of  his  address  ?  Anyhow, 
whether  he  caught  the  flying  word  in  this  way,  or  spoke 
out  of  the  intuition  in  his  mind  and  knowledge  of  all 
thoughts,  this  was  the  theme  on  which  he  did  speak, 
briefly  as  would  appear  amid  the  turmoil  and  movement 
of  the  crowd.  "  Ye  both  know  me,  and  ye  know  whence 
I  am,"  he  cries,  "  in  the  Temple  as  he  taught,"  raising  his 
voice  one  cannot  but  feel  to  still  the  rising  murmur.  "  And 
I  am  not  come  of  myself,  but  he  that  hath  sent  me  is  true, 
whom  ye  know  not.  But  I  know  him  :  for  I  am  from  him, 
and  he  hath  sent  me."  The  crowd  seethed  and  raged  around 
moved  by  conflicting  impulses,  while  he  stood  calm  having 
thus  proclaimed  his  high  commission  so  that  all  could  hear, 
dominating  the  tumult.  "  They  sought  to  take  him,"  those 
of  Jerusalem  who  were  on  the  side  of  the  authorities  :  "  but 
no  man  laid  hands  on  him,  for  his  hour  was  not  yet  come." 

There  is,  indeed,  through  every  line  a  sense  at  once 
of  bewilderment  and  of  awe,  the  surging  of  the  throng, 
the  opinions  as  diverse  as  were  the  elements  in  that 
mingled  multitude,  the  bigots  with  their  large  phylacteries, 
the  country  folk  come  up  for  their  holiday,  the  more 
serious  pilgrims  not  knowing  what  to  think.  "  When 
Christ  cometh,  will  he  do  more  miracles  than  this  man 
doth  ? "  rises  another  murmur  in  the  crowd.  We  are  told  of 
no  immediate  miracle  done  in  Jerusalem,  but  the  Galileans 
must  have  brought  a  hundred  tales  of  wonder,  and  even 
here  there  may  have  been  wonders  untold,  blessings  that 
radiated  from  him  as  he  moved,  and  which  penetrated  the 
crowd  with  a  sense  of  the  presence  of  One  in  the  midst  of 
them  who  was  not  as  any  other  teacher  had  ever  been. 

These  wonderings  and  questionings  must  have  risen 
into  all  the  force  of  a  popular  commotion  towards  the 
end  of  the  day  while  the  crowd  was  dispersing,  repeat- 
ing to  each  other  those  sayings  which  they  could  not 
understand.  What  did  that  prophet  mean  when  he  said 
"  Yet  a  little  while  am  I  with  you.  Ye  shall  seek  me,  and 
shall   not  find   me."  ?      "  Whither  will  he  go  ?  "    they  asked 


THE  SON  OF  DA  VI D  425 


among  themselves  ;  "  will  he  go  to  the  dispersed  among 
the  Gentiles  ? "  That,  too,  would  be  part  of  Messiah's 
mission,  to  gather  back  the  lost  tribes  of  Israel,  to  bring 
back  the  scattered  race  and  make  it  one.  "What  manner 
of  saying  is  this  that  he  said  ?  "  they  asked  each  other  as 
they  poured  down  across  the  bridge  and  by  the  great  stairs 
as  the  evening  was  falling,  towards  their  homes. 

The  members  of  the  governing  party  heard  these  mur- 
murs with  dismay.  The  Sanhedrim  must  have  collected,  as 
many  of  them  as  were  within  reach,  in  the  council-chamber, 
reporting  with  anxious  faces  what  one  and  another  had  heard. 
The  excitement  of  the  people  could  not  be  ignored.  The 
multitude  must  have  collected  from  every  side  to  that  one 
central  point  where  Jesus  stood,  other  teachings,  even  the 
office  of  the  evening  sacrifice,  neglected  in  their  eagerness 
to  hear  what  he  was  saying,  to  see  him,  to  behold,  perhaps, 
some  miracle  such  as  they  had  heard  of,  or  seen  on  former 
occasion.s.  The  council  of  the  priests  and  Phari.sces  were 
filled  with  rage  and  terror,  perhaps  not  wholly  irreligious  or 
unpatriotic.  An  uproar  among  the  people  was  of  all  things 
the  most  undesirable  at  such  a  moment ;  for  if  these  tolerated 
festivities  and  rites  became  in  any  way  a  danger  to  the 
public  peace,  there  was  always  a  fear  behind — an  excellent 
weapon  for  the  hostile  rulers,  a  continual  scare  for  the 
wavering — that  the  Romans  might  come  and  take  away 
their  name  and  people.  So  at  the  present  day,  could  we 
imagine  the  appearance  of  a  great  prophet  to  stir  into  a 
flame  of  new  life  the  meek  and  pensioned  Jews  of  Jerusalem, 
would  the  Turks  do,  if  permitted,  not  unwilling  to  have  .such 
a  pretext.  The  end  of  the  conclave  was  that  officers  were 
appointed  to  .secure  the  person-  of  the  Teacher  on  the  next 
day ;  and  then,  no  doubt,  the  rulers  too  separated,  with 
anxiety  indeed,  yet  with  satisfaction,  all  but  Nicodemus 
who  must  have  watched  the  progress  of  the  man  who  had 
conveyed  .so  strange  a  new  knowledge  to  his  mind,  with 
continually  increasing  'interest  and  wonder  though  without 
any  further  act  as  yet. 

Next  day   we    may  suppose,   at   least   a   day   following 


426  ■     THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

closely  after,  the  last  day,  the  great  day  of  the  feast,  the 
people  must  have  assembled  early  in  the  Temple  courts,  full 
of  the  same  excitement  and  curiosity.  We  are  told  that  it  was 
part  of  the  ceremonial  used  at  the  morning  sacrifice  to  pour 
out  libations  of  water  brought  from  Siloam  for  that  purpose, 
while  the  accompanying  choirs  sang  an  anthem  in  the  words 
of  the  prophet  Isaiah.  "  Therefore  with  joy  shall  ye 
draw  water  out  of  the  wells  of  salvation."  The  procession 
which  brought  in  that  water  from  the  cold  and  fresh  pool, 
in  the  midst  of  the  October  heat  and  overwhelming 
sunshine  :  the  golden  vessels  of  the  Temple  in  which  it  was 
conveyed  blazing  in  the  morning  light,  and  the  music  rising 
and  falling  as  the  water-bearers  came  up  the  slopes  of  Moriah 
towards  the  Temple  gates  :  must  have  been  one  of  the  most 
striking  and  picturesque  features  of  the  great  ceremonial,  and 
one  which  would  always  attract  the  crowd.  It  is  suggested 
that  it  was,  perhaps,  this  ceremony  which  brought  an  image 
he  had  before  employed  to  the  lips  of  our  Lord  as  he  began 
the  teachings  of  the  second  day.  He  "  stood  "  and  cried — 
perhaps  as  the  anthem  ended,  as  the  sparkling  flow  of  the  water 
stopped,  which  he  had  been  contemplating  like  the  crowd, 
pouring  out  like  light  itself  on  the  shining  stones  :  "  If  any 
man  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  me,  and  drink."  Were  there, 
perhaps,  eager  pilgrims  who  put  forth  a  hollowed  hand  to 
catch  some  drops  of  that  sparkling  water  as  it  flowed,  with 
a  sense  that  it  was  half  sacramental,  a  holy  thing?  It  is 
only  what  was,  no  doubt,  the  beginning  and  the  ending  of 
this  discourse  which  has  been  preserved  for  us,  as  seems  the 
case  in  all  the  addresses  of  this  animated  and  busy  time  ; 
but  we  know  that  he  had  already  made  use  of  that  image 
of  the  living  water,  so  doubly  full  of  meaning  in  the  burning 
East,  on  various  occasions  ;  and  the  effect  at  this  moment 
would  appear  to  have  been  very  great,  insomuch  that  "  the 
people  -when  they  heard  this  saying  "  said  "  Of  a  truth  this  is 
the  Prophet,"  while  others  said  "  This  is  the  Christ." 

Nothing  can  be  more  vivid  than  these  descriptions  of 
the  crowd  in  the  courts  of  the  Temple  which  seem  to  have 
occupied    so    much     of    the    Evangelist's    attention    at     so 


THE  SON  OF  DA  VID  427 


critical  a  moment.  Keenly  observant  of  every  change  in  the 
throng  of  upturned  faces,  and  every  movement  and  question 
among  them,  must  these  spectators  have  been  who  stood 
behind  their  Lord,  making  what  personal  barrier  of  defence 
they  could  for  him  amid  the  surrounding  pressure,  and 
less  regardful,  probably,  for  the  moment  of  what  he  said 
— for  could  not  they  ask  him  when  they  gathered  about 
him  in  the  evening,  under  the  olive-trees  in  the  quiet  of  the 
garden  ? — than  of  the  changes  of  the  crowd,  the  looks  of 
conviction  or  of  menace,  the  wave  of  feeling  that  passed  over 
them,  like  a  breeze  over  the  corn.  These  lookers-on  could 
not  disguise  from  themselves  that  his  very  life  might  be  in 
danger  should  some  sudden  impulse  of  bigotry  seize .  upon 
the  Jews,  who  must  have  formed  a  great  part  of  the  crowd  : 
or  that  any  tumult  and  public  uproar  would  react  upon  him 
whom  the  rulers  would  certainly  believe  to  have  provoked  it. 
Perhaps — who  can  tell  ? — they  thought  him  rash  to  be  so 
open,  to  place  his  own  supreme  position  before  that  multitude 
so  clearly,  instead  of  confining  himself  to  the  sublime  moral 
instruction,  the  wonderful  spiritual  expositions  of  all  things 
in  heaven  and  earth  to  which  he  had  given  utterance  in 
Galilee.  Why  now,  they  might  ask,  where  he  was  so  much 
less  secure,  should  he  put  the  test  of  doctrines  so  much 
more  bold,  challenging  the  very  foundations  of  belief  on  which 
the  whole  system  of  Jewish  religion  rested,  at  the  very  outset 
of  his  ministry  there  ? 

And  their  eyes  were  naturally  fixed  upon  the  multitude, 
as  appears  in  the  entire  narrative  of  John,  watching  intently 
every  change  of  sentiment,  marking  how  the  groups  would 
form  and  melt  away,  how  the  bearded  Jews  would  turn  to  each 
other,  the  women  put  forth  a  shriller  voice  of  comment,  heard 
here  and  there  among  the  murmuring  of  the  deeper  tones. 
"  Of  a  truth  this  is  the  Prophet !  "  "  This  is  the  Christ !  " 
mingled  with  the  corrective  comment  which  asked  "  Shall 
Christ  come  out  of  Galilee  ?  "  "  Should  he  not  come  out  of 
the  seed  of  David,  out  of  the  town  of  liethlchem  ?  "  Perhaps 
there  were  some  there  who  remembered  that  scene  in  the 
Temple  so  long  ago  when  old  Simeon  blessed  an  infant  of  that 


428  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY 


race  :  perhaps  some  who  never  could  forget  the  children  slain 
by  Herod's  cruel  order  that  an  infant  King  of  the  Jews  might 
not  escape  him.  But  this  wonderful  figure  in  the  midst  of 
them,  this  voice  which  went  to  their  very  hearts,  were  they  not 
those  of  a  man  from  Galilee  ?  Thus  rose  the  tumult,  the  dis- 
cussions, the  close  controversy,  carried  on  half  in  pantomime 
among  the  crowd,  which  fixed  the  eyes  of  the  beloved 
disciple,  keen  with  anxiety  for  his  Master's  safety  among 
this  mass  of  excited  men,  and  aware,  perhaps,  of  the  officers 
of  the  Sanhedrim  who  were  making  their  way  through  the 
debating  groups,  yet  who  could  not  help  hearing  what  he 
said,  and  could  not  escape  the  magic  of  his  influence.  The 
narrative  is  so  instinct  with  life,  so  full  of  the  breathless 
interest  with  which  the  writer  saw  and  heard  every  new  voice, 
every  rising  murmur,  every  sign  of  enthusiasm  or  perplexity, 
that  our  attention  is  almost  drawn  from  the  Divine  speaker, 
to  watch  as  John  did  those  vicissitudes  of  the  crowd. 

All  the  time  the  council  lYiust  have  been  sitting  anxious, 
too,  and  gloomy  in  their  chamber  awaiting  further  news, 
expecting,  till  he  was  brought  before  them  to  be  examined, 
to  be  confounded  in  his  pretensions  by  their  superior  wisdom 
and  learning,  perhaps,  they  may  have  hoped,  to  be  sent  back 
quietly  to  his  native  Galilee,  and  so  got  rid  of  without 
further  trouble.  One  can  imagine  how  they  remained  there 
impatient,  hearing  the  sound  of  the  great  crowd,  with  some- 
times a  word  or  two  of  the  clear  voice  which  dominated  its 
murmurs  coming  in  upon  the  air  ;  and  how  now  one  and  now 
another  would  go  out  with  a  curse  in  his  heart  at  the  folly  of 
the  multitude,  "  this  people  that  knoweth  not  the  law,"  to  see 
the  other  courts  empty  and  acquire  the  angry  consciousness 
that  all  men  were  going  after  the  new  teacher. 

After  long  suspense,  in  the  evening  when  the  people 
had  dispersed,  the  officers  of  the  Sanhedrim  came  back 
abashed  to  tell  their  tale.  They  had  not  been  able  to  arrest 
him.  The  men  were  overawed,  still  under  the  influence  of 
their  emotion.  They  did  not  put  forth  any  pretext  of  having 
been  stopped  by  the  crowd,  or  intimidated  by  the  popular 
enthusiasm,   but   stood   without  excuse  abashed   before  their 


THE  SON  OF  DA  VI D  429 


angry  masters.  "  Never  man  spake  like  this  man."  What 
an  excuse  to  make  to  those  in  whose  minds  this  was  the  very 
reason  for  securing  him  !  The  exasperated  rulers  would 
seem  to  have  been  at  the  end  of  their  strength  as  of  their 
patience,  and  could  only  fling  a  dart  of  scorn  at  the  weakness 
of  their  servants.  "  Have  any  of  the  rulers,  or  of  the  Pharisees, 
believed  on  him  ? "  they  asked  with  hot  contempt.  But  this 
speech  seems  to  have  awakened  the  dormant  feeling  of 
Nicodemus,  who  had  seen  and  heard  the  man  of  whom  they 
spoke,  and  whose  sympathies,  no  doubt,  were  with  the  shamed 
and  silenced  officials  rather  than  with  his  brethren  of  the 
Sanhedrim.  He  was  not  moved  as  yet  to  put  himself 
entirely  on  the  side  of  the  new  prophet,  and  yet  he  could  not 
hear  this  cheap  condemnation  of  him  (knowing  well  as  he 
did  that  never  man  spake  like  this  man)  without  protest. 
"  Doth  our  law  judge  any  man  before  it  hear  him  ?  "  he  said. 
In  such  a  case  even  the  claim  of  justice  sounds  like  that  of  a 
partisan.  "  Art  thou  also  of  Galilee  ?  "  cry  the  bigots,  turning 
upon  him.  "  Search,  and  look  :  for  out  of  Galilee  ariseth  no 
prophet."  It  was  not  much  of  an  argument,  perhaps,  in 
reply  to  those  who  had  heard  and  seen  for  themselves  ;  but 
such  as  it  was  it  silenced  Nicodemus,  not  ripe  for  any  great 
confession,  as  it  had  silenced  the  police  and  guardians  of  the 
public  peace. 

Nevertheless,  this  hot  discussion  also  seems  to  have 
passed  without  con.sequence,  for  we  find  that  early  in  the 
next  morning  our  Lord  came  again  to  the  Temple,  where 
"  all  the  people  came  unto  him  ;  and  he  sat  down,  and  taught 
them."  We  are  warned  by  all  commentators  not  to  take 
the  wonderful  and  beautiful  incident  here  inserted  as  part  of 
the  authentic  record.  It  is  suggested  that  the  story  of  the 
woman  taken  in  adultery  is  probably  a  very  old  fragment  of 
tradition,  preserved  by  being  inscribed  upon  the  margin  of  an 
early  transcript  of  the  gospel,  and  from  thence  transferred  to 
the  text  by  a  succeeding  copyist.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  and,  we  might  say,  characteristic  incidents  in  the 
narrative,  one  of  the  most  divine — in  that  austere  calm  of 
mercy,  unpunishing  but   all -convicting,  which  affords  us  so 


430  THE  FINAL  TRAGEDY  part  iv 

wonderful  a  view  of  eternal  purity  yet  compassion.  The 
fact  that  it  was  not,  as  some  say,  in  St.  John's  original 
gospel  is  by  no  means  an  assertion  that  it  is  not  true,  but 
only  that  it  cannot  be  received  as  part  of  his  witness  to  his 
Master.  It  must,  therefore,  be  set  aside  in  the  history, 
though  as  an  illustration  there  could  be  no  more  touching 
or  beautiful  picture.  We  pass  on  accordingly  to  the 
unquestioned  record,  which  gives  a  completely  changed 
character  to  the  discussions  and  conversations  of  this  day. 

The  Feast  of  Tabernacles  was  by  this  time  over.  The 
pilgrims  had  departed  on  their  homeward  way,  the  populace 
of  Jerusalem  had  returned  to  its  daily  life.  Common  work 
and  toil  replaced  the  exceptional  attendances  at  the  Temple. 
The  throng  of  worshippers  or  holiday-makers,  or  both,  had 
gone  back  to  the  loom  and  the  workshop,  and  the  affairs  of 
the  house.  But  the  work  of  Jesus,  which  was  not  for  the 
multitude  alone,  was  far  from  being  accomplished,  and  when 
he  came  back  through  the  deserted  courts  and  resumed  his 
teaching  to  the  little  group  of  the  more  devout  who  would 
still  assemble  there,  the  interest  does  not  lessen  though  the 
scene  is  changed.  He  was  in  "  the  treasury,"  a  place  opening 
into  the  court  of  the  women,  when  he  opened  his  instruction  : 
and  the  great  golden  candlestick  which  stood  there  is  supposed 
to  have  suggested  the  opening  words  of  his  address,  "  I  am 
the  Light  of  the  world."  The  spot  was  close  to  the  council- 
chamber  of  the  Sanhedrim,  where  his  voice  could  be  heard 
as  he  spoke,  and,  no  doubt,  there  were  members  of  that  body, 
or  of  its  close  adherents,  among  the  Pharisees  who  immedi- 
ately broke  in  upon  him  with  their  questions.  "  Thou  bearest 
record  of  thyself:  thy  record  is  not  true,"  they  said,  rudely 
interrupting  his  discourse.  It  is  with  perfect  calm  and 
composure,  and  a  lofty  tranquillity,  not  allowing  himself  to 
be  disturbed,  that  Jesus  replies.  He  had  already,  in  a  pre- 
vious discussion  of  the  same  kind,  referred  to  the  witness  of 
John  the  Baptist :  but  he  does  not  now  recur  to  that.  "  The 
Father  that  sent  me "  is  now  the  sole  witness  whom  he 
cites.  The  questions  which  these  hearers  of  the  learned 
class  ask  are  less  intelligent,  as  they  are  also  less,  much  less. 


THE  SON  OF  DA  VI D  431 


respectful  than  those  of  the  crowd.  They  treat  the  preacher 
with  a  contemptuous  abruptness,  breaking  in  continually  upon 
his  discourse,  "  Where  is  thy  Father  ? "  "  Who  art  thou  ? " 
they  cried:  "Docs  he  mean  to  kill  himself?" — to  each 
other,  probably  with  a  harsh  laugh  of  angry  criticism,  when 
he  warns  them,  as  he  did  the  multitude,  that  the  time  is 
coming  when  they  shall  seek  him  but  shall  not  be  able  to 
find  him.  In  the  midst  of  these  interruptions  there  would 
seem  to  have  gathered  a  larger  company  of  the  devout,  who 
were  in  the  constant  habit  of  attendance  at  the  Temple, 
while  he  spoke  with  the  Pharisees  :  and  the  fragments  of 
high  exposition  which  these  wranglers  permitted  to  be  heard 
reached  the  judgment,  at  least,  if  not  the  heart,  of  the  wider 
group,  which  probably  came  by  degrees  towards  the  open 
portico  to  look  into  the  chamber  where  he  sat,  discussing 
his  own  claim  to  be  heard,  with  that  unchangeable  calm 
unmoved  by  any  impertinence.  And  "  many  believed  on 
him,"  a  strange  statement  amid  the  opposition  and  angry 
contempt  of  the  others,  and  the  broken  fragments  which 
were  all  they  could  hear  of  what  he  said. 

The  inner  circle,  no  doubt,  dissolved  from  time  to  time, 
one  set  of  questioners  dispersing  to  betake  themselves  to 
some  more  important  duty  than  that  of  cross-examining  the 
Galilean — whom,  probably,  they  thought  a  personage  without 
danger  now  that  the  impulsive  and  easily- affected  crowd 
had  gone  :  while  another  took  their  places  from  among  the 
fringe  of  silent  listeners  outside,  whose  faces  bore  signs  of 
more  sincere  interest  and  emotion.  And  there  now  ensued 
a  very  remarkable  conversation  between  these  semi-converts 
and  the  teacher  to  whom  the  hearts  of  all  men  were  known. 
He  looked  at  them  as  they  drew  near  to  fill  up  the  places  of 
those  who  had  gone,  and  addressed  them  in  words  which 
express  at  once  the  peradventure  which  was  still  in  their 
hearts.  "If  ye  continue  in  my  word,  then  are  ye  my  dis- 
ciples indeed  ;  and  ye  shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth 
shall  make  you  free."  That  he  should  have  lifted  that 
benign  yet  austere  countenance  upon  those  proud  Jews,  strong 
in  the  conviction  that  their  national  faith  was  but  to  be  extended 


432  THE  FINAL  TRAGEDY  part  iv 

and  made  sovereign  over  all  by  the  Messiah  whom  they  faintly 
began  to  see  in  him — and  received  their  first  beginnings 
of  faith  with  so  penetrating  a  speech,  is  very  remarkable. 
He  who  would  not  permit  his  disciples  to  forbid  the  wander- 
ing volunteers  who  cast  out  devils  in  his  name,  but  did  not 
follow  him,  appears  in  a  new  light  when  he  thus  checks 
the  devotees  of  Jerusalem.  "  If  ye  continue,"  the  doubt 
might  be  tolerated,  but  not  the  strange  promise  made,  as  if 
they  were  only  simple  Galileans,  to  these  men,  trained  from 
their  childhood  to  exercise  their  faculties  upon  the  law.  It 
roused  at  once  the  pride  of  race  in  the  bosom  of  those 
citizens  of  the  holy  cit)^,  conservators  of  the  law  and  worship 
which  they  hoped  were  about  to  become  universal.  They 
answered  him  with  the  quickness  of  wonder  and  dawning 
offence.  "  We  be  Abraham's  seed,  and  were  never  in  bondage 
to  any  man  :   how  sayest  thou.  Ye  shall  be  made  free  ?  " 

The  test  thus  put  to  them  was  one  they  could  ill  bear. 
Captivities  and  bondage  they  had  known  many,  notwith- 
standing this  proud  assertion  of  independence,  and  at  that 
very  moment  were  within  the  rigid  bond  of  the  Roman  empire. 
But  yet  in  their  hearts  they  had  always  considered  themselves 
the  reigning  race,  the  chosen  people,  sole  depositaries  of  the 
truth  of  God,  destined  to  subdue  the  world  and  enforce 
everywhere  the  law  which  was  theirs  ;  and  even  Messiah 
could  not  be  permitted  to  question  their  superiority.  "  We 
be  Abraham's  seed  " — Abraham,  to  whom  the  promise  was 
given  that  his  seed  should  reign  over  the  whole  earth.  They 
must  have  grown  more  and  more  angry,  revolting  against 
the  doctrine  which  proclaimed  them  all  the  servants  of  sin, 
as  other  men  were,  as  he  went  on  ;  until  at  last  their 
arrogance  and  pretence  of  superiority  drew  from  him  the 
tremendous  accusation,  "Ye  are  of  your  father  the  devil." 
Had  the  Pharisees,  the  original  controversialists,  come  back 
by  this  time  to  take  the  part  of  their  brethren  ?  The  words 
"  Now  ye  seek  to  kill  me  "  would  seem  to  imply  this  :  at  all 
events,  the  Jews  who  were  around,  notwithstanding  their 
partial  belief,  took  up  the  challenge  and  threw  it  back  upon 
himself. 


THE  SON  OF  DA  VI D  433 


Nothing  could  have  been  more  dangerous  for  his  own 
safety  than  such  a  discussion  ;  for  there  was  no  longer  round 
him  the  partial  protection  of  the  multitude,  the  contagion 
of  their  excitement  and  enthusiasm,  but  only  the  party  whose 
entire  principle  of  life  was  struck  at  the  very  roots  by  his 
assumption,  and  whom  he  never  for  a  moment  conciliates  or 
yields  to.  The  gentleness,  the  pity,  the  toleration,  and  pro- 
found understanding  of  every  human  difficulty  which  have 
been  so  conspicuous  in  him  here  disappear.  The  sinner, 
the  publican,  the  beggar,  all  who  were  in  misery,  all  who  had 
learnt  the  impossibilities  of  this  life  and  their  own  powcr- 
lessness,  had  been  received  by  him  with  never-failing  tender- 
ness. Even  after  the  young  man  who  was  not  able  to  make 
up  his  mind  to  the  sacrifice  of  his  wealth  and  importance, 
Jesus  had  looked  with  an  affectionate  regret,  not  blaming, 
only  longing  that  he  might  learn  a  truer  insight.  But 
with  these  men  in  the  Temple  all  his  tenderness  disappears. 
Their  confidence  in  themselves,  and  certainty  that  they  are 
not  as  other  men:  their  resistance  to  the  spiritual  meaning  of 
the  teaching  which  has  compelled  the  acquiescence  of  their 
intellect,  even  when  they  are  forced  to  believe  in  it : 
their  determination  to  understand  him,  the  great  revealer 
of  the  Father,  as  but  a  new  official  in  the  service  of  the 
Temple  "  restoring  Israel "  to  the  first  place  in  the  world, 
and  bringing  themselves  into  the  highest  distinction — are 
beyond  even  the  tolerance  of  his  perfect  understanding.  The 
selfishness  which  is  so  often  unconscious,  of  sinful  nature, 
can  be  turned  into  self-abnegation,  the  unclean  can  be  made 
clean,  the  demoniac  sane  :  but  what  save  the  utter  beating 
down  of  judgment  can  change  the  Pharisee  ?  Not  sons  ot 
Abraham  as  is  their  boast,  but  sons  of  the  devil,  doing  his 
works,  maintaining  his  everlasting  lie.  "  Your  father  Abra- 
ham ! "  Our  Lord  has  come  to  a  time  and  place  in  which 
he  no  longer  retains  any  reserve  upon  the  facts  of  his  own 
wonderful  being  ;  but  we  may,  perhaps,  be  permitted  to 
imagine  that  the  high  human  indignation  in  him,  and  con- 
sciousness of  all  the  wrong  that  had  been  done  in  that  holy 
and   faithful    name,  a    little    forced    his    utterance.       "  Your 

2  F 


434  THE  FINAL  TRAGEDY  part  iv 

father  Abraham  rejoiced  to  see  my  day  :  he  saw  it,  and  was 
glad."  This  sudden  extraordinary  gleam  of  light  into  the 
mystery  and  the  unity  of  a  world  of  which  that  was  the 
all-pervading  ever-continued  thread  of  story  and  of  interest, 
disclosed,  in  fact,  the  highest  glory  of  Abraham's  race.  But 
the  hearers  may  be  pardoned  if,  bewildered  and  overawed,  as 
they  evidently  were,  it  was  the  incredible  fact  thus  suggested 
that  struck  them  most,  "  Thou  art  not  yet  fifty  years  old,  and 
hast  thou  seen  Abraham  ? "  It  would  follow  naturally  in 
the  course  of  the  narrative  that  here  he  rose,  having  con- 
cluded his  argument,  to  withdraw  from  that  scene  of  con- 
troversy which  was  so  little  congenial  to  him  ;  and  there 
standing,  looking  at  those  fanatics  for  Moses,  those  children 
of  Abraham,  uttered  the  wonderful  words,  "  Before  Abraham 
was,  I  am." 

The  majesty  of  these  brief  syllables,  the  extraordinary 
grandeur  and  simplicity  of  the  assertion,  are  beyond  all  com- 
ment. "  They  took  up  stones  to  cast  at  him,"  the  record 
goes  on,  but  vainly,  who  could  doubt  defeated  by  their 
own  hearts  that  beat  and  their  own  arms  that  trembled  :  and 
"  Jesus  hid  himself,  and  went  out  of  the  temple,"  concealed 
by  the  dazzling  and  bewilderment  that  must  have  come  to 
every  eye. 


CHAPTER    II 

MESSIAS 

In  the  meantime,  while  these  incidents  had  been  taking  place 
in  the  consecrated  city  where  all  things  were  to  be  fulfilled  and 
accomplished,  the  wonderfijl  background  of  life  in  Galilee 
had  gone  on  surrounding  and  enclosing  all.  It  is  not 
needful  for  our  purpose,  as  has  been  said,  nor  according 
to  our  desire,  to  enter  fully  into  that  history  which,  what- 
ever may  be  the  beliefs  of  those  who  read  it,  must  always 
remain  the  most  wonderful  on  earth.  In  Jerusalem  our  Lord 
walks  in  the  midst  of  contention  and  questioning,  constrained 
(if  we  may  with  reverence  use  such  a  word)  by  the  pressure 
of  circumstances  about  him  to  answer  for  himself,  to 
maintain  his  high  unwavering  assertion  of  his  own  office 
and  character,  to  leave  his  adversaries  no  excuse.  But  in 
Galilee  the  Son  of  God  is  also  the  Child  of  Nature,  moving 
in  a  harmonious  circle  of  beneficence  and  wisdom,  letting 
no  sufferer  pass  unheeded,  no  human  want  unsupplicd, 
shedding  forth  from  him  without  effort,  as  one  who  could 
not  help  it,  not  only  acts  but  words  of  grace,  such  as  human 
breath  had  never  uttered  before. 

From  the  shores  of  the  lake  to  the  summit  of  those  green 
and  rounded  hills,  where  every  slope  seems  to  include  a  grassy 
platform  for  the  listeners,  a  knoll  for  the  speaker,  as  they 
descend  in  soft  circles  to  the  water  line — all  is  eloquent  with 
recollections.  Along  the  beach  with  its  fishing  villages,  now 
mostly  swept  away,  with  its  fishing  cobbles  laid  up  on  the 
gleaming  shore,  and  the  soft  hills  on  the  other  side  in  a  haze 


436  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY 


of  sunshine,  the  pilgrim  feels  as  if  there  wants  but  a  little, 
and  he  might  himself  see  that  wayfarer  moving  along,  calling 
the  sunburnt  fishers  from  the  boats,  turning  round  benignant 
to  see  those  two  following  who  had  been  with  John  in  the 
wilderness,  pausing  to  cast  a  look  of  kindness  upon  the  tax- 
gatherer  at  his  bar,  whom  no  man  cared  to  speak  to,  but  whom 
He  bid  to  follow  too.  I  can  never  forget  a  Sunday  morning 
there,  a  rapture  of  light  and  freshness,  soft  waters  rippling  on 
the  beach,  soft  airs  lifting  the  opened  hangings  of  the  tent,  the 
lake  lying  calm  in  the  great  glory  of  the  sunshine,  the  distant 
outlines  all  veiled  in  mists  of  light,  and  a  sense  of  still  adora- 
tion, hushed  as  if  by  His  very  presence  ;  nor  the  subsequent 
voyage  across  the  lake  to  where  the  city  which  rejected  him, 
that  Capernaum  which  was  exalted  unto  heaven,  lies  dumb 
in  inarticulate  ruin,  not  one  stone  standing  on  another,  upon 
the  water's  edge.  All  blessed  was  the  day,  the  light,  the 
hour,  even  the  sudden  quick  wind  that  sprang  up,  so  that 
the  boatmen,  like  those  of  old,  had  to  "  toil  in  rowing  "  against 
the  rapid  rising  of  the  waves  :  all  blessed,  though  filled  since 
then  with  other  poignant  memories  not  to  be  forgotten,  and 
the  sigh  never  long  silent  in  the  heart, 

For  the  touch  of  a  vanished  hand, 
And  the  sound  of  a  voice  that  is  still. 

The  associations  which  gather  round  this  scene  are  of  a 
different  order  from  those  which  belong  to  Jerusalem  :  not 
that  disturbance  or  contention  was  wanting  in  this  more 
than  any  other  human  scene  :  but  no  gloomy  presence  of 
rigid  law-perverting  Pharisee,  or  spruce  sceptic  of  a  scribe 
in  borrowed  plumes  of  heathen  philosophy,  can  sully  the  fresh 
morning  of  divine  life,  the  harmony  of  holy  teaching,  the 
blessings  of  the  mount,  the  sacred  story,  fable,  allegory 
which  He  told  as  he  sat,  withdrawn  a  little  in  his  ship 
upon  the  silvery  water's  edge,  to  the  eager  multitude,  and 
explained  as  he  walked  along,  or  rested  on  the  way,  to  his 
wondering  disciples.  In  Jerusalem  that  great  tragedy  is 
ever  tragic  and  the  end  never  hid  from  the  impassioned 
and  anxious  spectatorship  of  all  the  ages.      But  the  heart 


MESSIAS  439 


turns  to  Galilee  with  a  rebound  of  happiness,  of  loving 
contemplation,  and  eternal  hope,  and  wc  all  feel  again  as 
if  no  cross  or  agony  could  be  :  "  Be  it  far  from  thee,  Lord  !" 
but  only  the  spectacle  of  a  whole  world  revolving  about  the 
Sun  of  Righteousness,  recognising  its  God  walking  as  a 
man  among  men. 

Our  Lord  returned  to  his  home  in  the  north  after  the 
controversies  and  the  dangers  of  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles. 
But  by  this  time  all  the  privacy  and  sweetness  of  his 
early  life  was  over,  and  the  province  awaited  him  in  a 
fever  of  excitement,  lit  up  by  many  causes.  Not  only  the 
fierce  fire  of  opposition  raging  among  those  who  found  in 
his  teachings  a  contradiction  of  all  their  own  rigid  system, 
a  setting  aside  of  the  ceremonial  law  in  which  they  lived 
and  moved  and  had  their  being :  and  that  responsive 
conflagration  of  enthusiasm  which  moved  the  people  whom 
the  Lord  fed  and  healed,  to  attempt  to  take  him  by  force 
and  make  him  their  king  :  but  a  thousand  individual  hopes 
and  expectations  of  deliverance  from  suffering,  and  salvation 
from  death,  of  satisfaction  of  doubts  and  confirmation  in 
faith  :  must  have  been  growing  in  every  village,  by  every 
path  along  which  it  was  hoped  that  he  might  pass.  The 
country  waited  for  him,  alert  for  every  signal :  many  a 
woman  at  her  door  intent  upon  the  way,  thinking  of  her 
sick  child  or  ailing  husband,  as  well  as  the  groups  in  the 
synagogue  and  the  coteries  of  the  learned  and  superior 
persons,  who  even  in  these  simple  regions  clustered  round 
every  centre  of  teaching.  It  must  have  been  felt  that  when 
he  returned  again  after  all  those  controversies  and  com- 
motions at  Jerusalem,  something  decisive  must  happen, 
either  the  revelation  in  power  of  his  office  as  Messiah,  or 
some  demonstration  that  it  was  not  he  which  should  restore 
Israel.  Emissaries  had  come  from  Jerusalem,  always  with 
the  intention  of  entangling  him  in  his  talk,  of  finding  some 
occasion  of  judgment ;  and  Pharisees  and  Sadducecs,  priests 
and  .scribes,  were  all  on  the  alert  to  make  this  the  final 
episode  in  a  career  which  shook  their  world  to  its 
foundation.s. 


44° 


THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY 


Jesus  himself  would  seem  to  have  responded  in  the  full 
force  of  his  human  nature,  not  less  affected  by  factious 
opposition  than  by  the  tenderness  of  belief,  to  this  great 
excitement  of  feeling.  He  had  never  hesitated  to  pronounce 
his  judgment  upon  the  formalist  and  the  hypocrite  ;  but  now 
that  all  the  powers  of  evil  were  rising  against  him,  those 
lips  which  had  spoken  nothing  but  blessing,  and  whose 
familiar  language  was  always  that  of  love  and  charit}', 
opened  with  lofty  reproof,  delivering  the  sentence  of  supreme 


AIN-KT-TIN  :    SEA   OF   GALILEE 


disapproval,  the  "  Woe  unto  you  Pharisees  and  Sadducees, 
hypocrites,"  which  joined  together  the  two  contending 
sects,  as  far  as  the  poles  apart  from  each  other,  but  yet 
united  in  offence  and  bitter  opposition  to  the  springing 
of  the  new  life.  They  harassed  his  steps  wherever  he 
appeared,  making  every  detail  of  existence  into  a  controversy, 
plying  him  with  cunning  questions,  converting  the  very 
repast  offered  in  seeming  courtesy  into  an  occasion  of 
wrangling.  The  crisis  was  now  so  near  that  all  ordinary 
restraints  began  to  be  broken.  Out  of  doors  the  multitude 
so  thronged  about  him  "  that  they  trod  one  upon  another." 
When  the  rumour  ran  that  he  was  coming,  every  house  was 
emptied   of  its   inhabitants,  every  corner  filled  with  anxious 


CHAP  II  MESSIAS  441 

gazers,  the  sick  brought  out  and  laid  in  the  streets  in  all 

the  horrors  of  primitive  disease,  an  extraordinary  feature  of 
the  scene,  hailing  him  with  a  clamour  of  beseeching  voices, 
maimed  and  wounded  and  forlorn,  trembling  with  fever, 
writhing  with  pain,  holding  up  withered  limbs,  and  uncover- 
ing sores.  Bad  enough  even  now  is  the  wretched  throng 
which  crowds  about  the  traveller  from  whom  only  money 
is  to  be  had,  or  the  miserable  shadow  of  money,  the 
infinitesimal  Turkish  coins  of  which  a  stranger  rarelj' 
understands  the  insignificance :  but  when  it  was  health, 
restoration,  new  life  that  was  to  be  looked  for !  And  the 
well-to-do  of  every  village  gathered  conspicuous  on  the 
road,  the  rulers  of  the  synagogue,  the  lawyers  who  inter- 
preted the  law,  and  laid  many  burdens  on  men's  shoulders 
which  they  themselves  did  not  touch  with  a  finger :  the 
Pharisees,  with  all  their  pretences  and  exactions,  lying  in 
wait,  keeping  an  evil  eye  upon  every  movement,  misinter- 
preting every  act  and  word  :  while  the  multitude  closed  in 
around,  all  bent  upon  personal  advantage,  the  recollection 
of  those  miraculous  meals,  the  bread  of  Bcthsaida,  the  wine 
of  Cana,  and,  probably,  who  could  tell?  the  hope  of  other  gains 
and  other  prodigies  from  the  hands  which  could  command 
everything  —  filling  their  minds  with  a  passion  of  desire 
and  eagerness.  The  morning  time  of  natural  beneficence 
and  harmony  was  over  ;  they  were  ready  to  tear  him  in 
pieces,  in  faith  as  well  as  in  opposition  ;  on  the  one  side 
in  fierce  acquisitiveness  to  get  what  they  wanted — on  the 
other  in  hatred  to  sweep  him  out  of  their  path  :  but  the 
one  as  self-seeking  as  the  other,  a  rage  of  belief  as  well  as  a 
rage  of  wrath.  Between  the  crowd,  hungry  for  miracle, 
impatient  to  have  his  mission  proved  by  some  great 
convulsion  of  nature,  and  his  enemies,  desiring  a  sign  and 
watching  his  every  movement,  especially  on  the  Sabbath 
day,  which  their  vigilant  superstition  made  anything  but 
a  day  of  rest — it  would  be  hard  to  tell  which  was  worst. 

It  was  to  escape  from  this  tumult,  so  disappointing  to 
the  human  heart  of  him,  who,  though  he  knew  what  was 
in   man,  had,  doubtless,  in  the    intense  longing  of  his  love, 


442 


THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY 


hoped,  as  many  a  reformer  has  done  since,  that  this  time 
something  different  was  to  be  looked  for — with  so  much  more 
reason  than  any  other,  though  with  the  certainty  so  much 
stronger  than  any  other,  of  the  tragic  end  of  all :  that  Jesus 
left  his  favoured  province  and  wandered  forth  towards  the 
great  sea  "  into  the  borders  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,"  and  even 
farther  afield  "  through  all  the  cities  of  Decapolis,"  which 
may   have    included    Damascus.       It    gives    a    new    interest 


PILGRIMS    tent:   ain-et-tin,  near  uethsaida 


to    that    city    of    enchantment    to    think 
peradventure  that  "  those  blessed  feet. 


there 


IS    even    a 


Which  nineteen  hundred  years  ago  were  nailed 
For  our  advantage  to  the  bitter  cross," 

may  have  walked  its  unchanging  streets.  But  of  this  journey 
there  is  no  record  except  in  a  faint  glimpse  here  and  there 
showing  the  wandering  party  in  unlikely  places  on  that  way. 
It  is  supposed  to  have  been  on  their  return  towards  Galilee 
that  they  passed  by  the  fine  Roman  colony  called  Cassarea 
Philippi,  with  its  temples  and  grottoes,  among  the  silvery 
intricacies  of  the  sources  of  Jordan,  where  still  the  relics  of 


MESSIAS 


443 


the  great  Temple  of  Pan  disturb  the  surface  of  the  rocks, 
and  the  little  Syrian  village  of  Banias  stands  brightly  amid 
a  refreshing  greenness  of  foliage  familiar  to  Western  eyes, 
dearer  than  the  gray  olives,  or  dark  pines,  or  palms  of  Eastern 
vegetation.  It  was  here  that  Peter's  confession  of  the  Lord 
Christ  was  made,  and  rewarded  by  his  Master's  emphatic 
approval  and  promise.  The  same  journey  has  appeared  to 
many  commentators  to  make  it  likely  that  it  was  on  some 
height  of  Hermon,  under  the  level  of  the  gleaming  snows, 
that  the  Transfiguration  took  place,  instead  of  upon  the 
familiar  Tabor  of  the  home  landscape,  so  round  and  green. 
But  these  can  only  be  regarded  as  suggestions,  since  neither 
Hermon  nor  Damascus  is  mentioned  in  the  record.  It  is 
difficult,  however,  to  imagine  what  could  have  taken  them  to 
Caesarea  Philippi,  unless  they  passed  there  in  the  course  of 
a  long  journey  :  but  Tabor  would  lie  in  their  way  on  their 
return  from  "  the  borders  of  Tyre  and  Sidon "  to  Galilee, 
passing  close  by  the  little  Nazareth,  the  name  of  which 
Jesus  still  bore,  and  where  his  early  years  were  passed. 

Whatever  may  be  the  fact  about  these  details,  which  are 
of  so  much  inferior  importance,  it  is  evident  that  the  mystic 
incident  of  the  Transfiguration  took  place  about  this  time. 
It  had  become  necessary  that  those  disciples,  who  were  soon 
to  become  apostles,  the  chosen  witnesses  of  'his  life,  as  of 
his  death  and  resurrection,  should  be  prepared  for  the  over- 
whelming revelation  which  awaited  them,  of  the  end,  so  far 
different  from  their  hopes,  of  their  Lord's  ministry.  It  was 
while  travelling  by  the  sea  that  his  first  intimation  of  what 
was  about  to  happen  was  received  by  his  companions  with 
incredulity  and  even  reproof,  as  the  mere  utterance  of  a  fit 
of  depression,  impossible  to  contemplate,  a  sort  of  gloomy 
imagination  not  to  be  tolerated.  Peter's  exclamation,  "  Be 
it  far  from  thee.  Lord ! "  was  indeed  the  most  natural  of 
utterances,  though  it  called  forth  the  strongest  expression  of 
displeasure  to  which  his  Master  ever  gave  vent.  "  Peter 
took  him  and  began  to  rebuke  him,"  for  despondency,  no 
doubt,  for  too  dark  a  view  of  men  and  their  depravity.  It 
was  on  the  same  journey  that  the  impetuous  disciple  had 


444  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

proclaimed  his  certain  faith  in  the  office  of  his  Master,  the 
one  utterance  following  the  other  with  very  little  interval 
between  ;  and  the  words  of  the  Lord,  "  Blessed  art  thou, 
Simon  Bar-jona,"  had  scarcely  died  out  of  the  air,  before  he 
had  to  bid  the  same  eager  speaker  "  Get  thee  behind  me  ! 
for  thou  savourest  not  the  things  that  be  of  God,  but  the 
things  that  be  of  man."  And  it  was  very  shortly  after  that 
he  led  them  up  into  the  high  mountain  apart,  where  they 
saw  a  glorious  vision,  and  heard  the  conversation  of  heaven 
about  that  which  they  had  refused  to  credit,  that  which  their 
minds  refused  to  receive,  the  decease  to  be  accomplished  at 
Jerusalem.  It  seems  little  likely  that  they  derived  much 
benefit  from  this  at  the  time.  The  glory  was  too  much  for 
their  dazzled  eyes.  The  bewildered  suggestion  of  Peter 
about  the  three  tabernacles  shows  how  little  comprehension 
of  the  real  object  of  that  wonderful  incident  had  penetrated 
his  mind  ;  the  glorious  robes,  the  shining  countenances,  the 
sudden  transportation  into  a  new  world  of  wonder,  in  which 
external  life  disappears  like  a  shadow,  flooded  his  mind  with 
amaze  ;  and  a  shrine  to  shield  the  human  eyes  and  make 
worship  possible  was  all  his  strained  faculties  could  think  of, 
not  the  subject  of  that  high  discourse  which  was  intended  to 
bring  the  things  of  God  down  to  the  capacity  of  man.  But 
they  remembered  afterwards,  and  knew  what  it  meant. 

Many  of  the  most  pregnant  sayings  of  our  Lord,  his 
most  wonderful  addresses  and  touching  offices  of  mercy,  were 
done  at  this  time.  The  repeated  announcements  of  his  own 
approaching  suffering  and  death  were  too  clear,  as  it  appears 
to  us  who  have  known  all  our  lives  what  followed,  to  be 
mistaken  or  misapprehended  :  but  it  is  evident  that  the  dis- 
ciples still  continued  to  misapprehend,  and  did  not,  for  some 
time  even  after  these  anticipations  were  fulfilled,  perceive 
how  distinctly  they  had  been  warned  of  what  was  to  come. 
It  was  now  that  he  called  a  little  child  and  set  him  in  the 
midst  of  them,  and  told  these  eager  enthusiasts,  still  bent 
upon  great  place  and  promotion  in  the  kingdom  of  Messiah, 
that  they  must  become  as  little  children  if  they  would  so 
much  as  enter  into  the  kingdom   of  heaven  ;  and  instructed 


MESSIAS 


445 


them  that  if  a  brother  offended  not  seven  times  but  seventy 
times  seven  he  should  yet  be  forgiven  ;  and  gathering  the 
little  ones  about  him,  commanding  to  forbid  them  not, 
blessed  the  little  wondering  group  upon  the  way  with  a 
tenderness  never  to  be  forgotten.  And  it  was  now  that  — 
his  divine  heart  more  soft  than  ever  in  the  solemnity  of  the 
approaching  end — he  looked  upon  and  loved  the  young  man 
who  had  kept  all  the  Commandments  from  his  youth  up, 
yet  could  not  find  it  in  his  heart  to  gain  perfection  by  giving 
up  all  he  had  to  the  poor.      That  it  should  have  been  at  the 


ON  THE  SHORES  OF  THE  SEA  OF  UALII.EK 


very  moment  of  this  youth's  shrinking  from  so  great  a  sacri- 
fice that  Jesus  loved  him,  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful 
touches  of  nature  and  humanity,  past  all  conceiving.  The 
story  of  the  Good  Samaritan  (was  it  told  upon  the  way 
as  the  travellers  ascended  slowly  the  steep  scarp  of  the  rocky 
road  that  led  from  Jericho  to  Jerusalem  ?)  and  of  the  Prodigal 
Son  belong  to  this  solemn  time  :  and  it  was  now  that  with 
a  melancholy  irony,  seeing  the  guests  crowding  up  to  the 
best  places  at  the  Pharisees'  feast,  at  some  town  where  he 
rested,  he  bade  them  for  more  honour  choo.se  the  lowest 
room,   so   that   they   might   be   advanced,   and    not   expose 


446  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY 


themselves  to  the  ignominy  of  being  made  to  give  place  to 
their  betters.  But  it  would  be  vain  to  attempt  to  enumerate 
all  the  wonderful  words  and  acts  either  of  that  last  season 
in  Galilee,  the  country  of  his  predilection,  while  he  still 
lingered  upon  the  shores  of  the  lake,  and  by  the  pleasant 
greenness  of  the  hills,  or  in  the  lingering  details  of  the  wan- 
derings between  Galilee  and  Jerusalem  which  followed. 

His  setting  out  upon  the  journey  from  which  he  was 
never  to  return  save  in  the  mystery  of  resurrection,  was  more 
than  usually  memorable.  He  had  sent  out  some  time  before 
seventy  of  his  disciples,  two  by  two  "  before  his  face  into 
every  city,  whither  he  himself  would  come,"  and  received 
their  joyful  report  as  he  went  on,  following  in  their  steps, 
group  by  group  coming  back  to  rejoin  him  as  he  proceeded 
on  his  journey.  It  is  recorded  of  one  of  the  villages  in  the 
Samaritan  country  which  lay  in  the  way  to  Jerusalem,  that 
they  refused  to  receive  him,  in  some  access  of  hot  local 
opposition,  and  he  had  to  turn  aside  to  rest  in  another. 
That  James  and  John,  those  fiery  spirits  who  a  little  time 
before  had  desired  of  him  that  they  should  sit  one  on  his 
right  hand  and  the  other  on  his  left  in  his  kingdom,  should 
now,  half  in  righteous  indignation,  half  with  the  swelling 
sense  of  supernatural  power  and  desire  to  silence  for  ever 
every  cavilling  tongue,  have  desired  to  call  down  fire  from 
heaven  (in  the  exultation  of  their  recent  experience  that 
even  devils  were  subject  to  them  in  his  name)  to  consume 
the  churlish  town — is  so  natural  in  the  extraordinary  circum- 
stances that  we  feel  with  them  the  intolerable  impatience 
which  such  an  affront  would  produce.  But  when  he  turns 
and  rebukes  them,  the  higher  nature  is  so  natural,  too,  in 
supreme  comprehension  and  pity  that  every  thought  is 
silenced.  "  Ye  know  not  what  manner  of  spirit  ye  are  of" 
It  was  John,  the  apostle  of  love,  who  had  spoken — a  man 
of  vehement  feelings,  yet  whose  whole  teaching  and  doctrine 
merged  in  his  later  life  into  the  reiteration  of  the  lessons  of 
brotherhood.  He  would  have  destroyed  in  his  hasty  impulse, 
love  for  his  Master  being  so  hot  in  him  :  but  he  would  have 
been  the  first  to  quench  with  tears  and  with  horrified  entreaties 


CHAP.  II  MESSIAS  447 

the  juin   he   had   made.      His   Master   knew  him   far   better 
than  he  knew  himself. 

That  there  might  be  a  certain  justification  for  the 
villagers  from  an  economical  point  of  view  in  their  refusal  to 
receive  him  with  the  multitude  which  followed,  an  endless 
train — which,  though  no  doubt  it  began  to  fall  off  as  the 
distance  from  Galilee  increased,  was  still  a  vast  crowd  of 
people  enough  to  swamp  any  rural  place — we  may  also 
allow.  That  they  fell  off  by  degrees  is  apparent  from  the 
broken  words  which  came  out  of  one  band  after  another  as 
they  paused,  reason  compelling  them  to  perceive  that,  short 
of  the  tremendous  decision  to  leave  all  and  follow  him,  they 
had  gone  far  enough.  For  Jesus  was  not  now  bound  to 
the  great  feast  in  which  all  Jews  were  concerned,  but  to 
the  Feast  of  the  Dedication,  at  which  attendance  was  not 
obligatory  :  and  it  was  now  winter  when  the  roads  were  at 
their  worst  and  the  weather  uncertain.  As  they  came  to  say 
farewell  to  him  there  must  have  been  many  a  suppres.sed 
sound  of  weeping,  and  lingering  look  behind.  "  Lord,  I  will 
follow  thee  whithersoever  thou  goest."  "  Lord,  suffer  me 
first  to  go  and  bury  my  father."  "  Lord,  let  me  bid  farewell 
to  my  household."  These  were  the  cries  which  they  uttered 
in  their  emotion,  not  able  to  tear  themselves  away,  yet 
knowing  they  could  not  go  on.  Our  Lord  represses  this  cry 
of  strained  emotion  with,  we  may  imagine,  the  usual  smile 
of  tender  understanding  on  his  face.  He  knew  when  it  was 
only  the  passion  of  temporary  sorrow,  the  pang  of  leave- 
taking  which  burst  forth  in  those  cries,  and  in  his  divine 
toleration  did  not  blame  them.  "  Foxes  have  holes,  and  the 
birds  of  the  air  have  nests  ;  but  the  Son  of  man  hath  not 
where  to  lay  his  head,"  he  says  to  him  whose  feelings  had 
been  too  much  for  him,  who  could  not  bear  to  go,  yet  prob- 
ably was  all  unadapted  to  stay  :  and  we  may  imagine  him 
looking  after  them  with  a  look  never  to  be  forgotten,  as  one 
by  one  in  weeping  and  humiliation — not  able  for  that  sacri- 
fice, bound  by  all  the  ties  of  home,  yet  almost  equally  unable 
to  separate  themselves  from  his  side  :  they  turned  back  to 
their  impoverished  and  diminished  Galilee,  the  villages  and 


THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY 


rural  places  he  had  loved,  yet  where  he  was  to  live,  and 
teach  never  more.  Would  that  man  whom  the  Lord  him- 
self had  bidden  to  follow,  go  too,  to  bury  his  father,  not 
capable  of  the  great  renunciation  ?  Would  they  say  to  each 
other  as  the  windings  of  the  road  hid  the  band  of  pilgrims 
from  their  sight,  drying  their  eyes,  recovering  their  voices, 
that  they  would  see  him  again  when  they  went  up  for  the 
Passover — that  next  summer  he  would  surely  be  back  to  bless 
their  fishing  and  console  all  their  troubles  ? 

The  diminished  band  went  on,  their  faces  steadfastly  set 
towards  Jerusalem,  held  back  by  no  obstacles,  turning  aside 
to  another  village  when  rejected  by  the  first,  and  now  more 
easily  lodged  in  their  decreased  numbers,  and  more  intimate 
and  near  to  each  other  than  when  distracted  by  the  require- 
ments of  the  crowd  ;  the  twelve  surrounding  him  most 
closely  of  all,  the  companions  of  the  seventy  falling  into  the 
band  from  point  to  point  along  the  way,  the  women  of 
Galilee  attending  and  ministering  to  him,  his  own  mother 
ever  humble  and  reverent,  assuming  no  superior  place. 
Nothing  can  be  more  difficult  than  to  trace  with  any  exact- 
ness the  wanderings  of  this  prolonged  and  double  journey, 
broken  up  in  the  midst  by  a  rapid  visit  to  Jerusalem,  or  to 
define  what  was  done  before  that  visit,  and  what  after,  during 
the  time  which  he  spent  in  Judea  before  the  final  proceedings 
of  the  last  Passover.  The  pilgrims  would  seem,  at  all  events, 
to  have  lingered  on  the  way,  perhaps  kept  back  at  first  by 
the  sweeping  rains  that  pour  down  in  torrents  in  the  wintry 
season  :  and  if  we  conclude  that  they  maintained  their  course 
more  or  less  directly  for  Jerusalem,  there  is  little  incident  to 
record  except  the  first  visit  to  Bethany,  where  the  sisters, 
afterwards  so  well  known,  and  who  would  seem  to  have  been 
at  once  numbered  among  the  dearest  friends  of  his  lowli- 
ness, received  him  into  their  house.  These  two  women 
stand  out  at  once  before  us  in  the  extreme  brevity  of  the 
record,  in  a  simple  episode  which  makes  them  instantly 
recognisable  like  neighbours  of  our  own.  Martha,  the  thrifty 
housewife,  cumbered  about  many  things,  was  the  mistress  ot 
the  house,  and   anxious  with  all   the  affection   and   homely 


MESS2AS  449 


pride  of  a  rustic  hostess  to  serve  that  visitor  with  her  best, 
and  entertain  him  hke  a  king  ;  but  Mary,  the  younger  sister, 
thought  of  nothing  but  himself,  and  how  to  hear  every  word 
and  catch  every  look.  Jesus  did  not  blame  that  notable, 
good  woman  for  her  absorption  in  household  cares,  until  it 
became  necessary  to  clear  the  rapt  listener  from  the  charge 
of  idleness  and  indifference.  This  is  the  only  mention  of 
that  little  privileged  household  in  any  gospel  but  that  of  St. 
John  :  and  the  brother  is  not  named  who  might  be  the 
master  of  another  house,  or  absent  upon  his  ordinary  affairs, 
on  the  occasion  of  this  first  visit. 

It  must  have  been  from  Bethany  that  Jesus  and  his 
disciples  went  into  the  Temple,  where  they  appeared  quietly, 
a  little  travelling  band,  without  the  multitude  that  usually 
dogged  their  footsteps.  There  is  something  in  the  narrative 
that  follows  which  suggests  the  early  morning,  the 
Sabbath  day's  calm,  and  no  one  near  to  disturb  the  quiet 
and  devout  progress  of  the  little  group,  which,  no  doubt,  had 
gone  up  early  before  the  world  was  astir.  They  saw  "  as 
they  passed  by,  a  man  which  was  blind  from  his  birth," 
sitting  by  the  city  gate,  or  in  a  porch  of  the  Temple  in 
the  early  sunshine.  Our  Lord  stopped  to  look  at  him,  his 
attention  called  by  the  question  of  his  disciples,  "  Lord, 
who  did  sin,  this  man,  or  his  parents,  that  he  was  born 
blind  ? "  He  must  have  been  a  man  well  known  by  the 
frequenters  of  the  Temple  that  his  circumstances  were  so 
familiar  to  these  strangers.  Jesus  paused  to  see  the  object 
of  the  question,  and  then  with  a  curious  unwonted  ceremony 
put  the  clay  he  had  made  upon  the  blind  eyes  and  dis^ 
missed  him  quietly  to  wash  in  the  Pool  of  Siloam — perhaps 
in  order  to  avoid  the  tumult  which  so  striking  a  miracle 
would  have  caused  :  and  proceeded — to  all  appearance  almost 
without  interruption — with  his  teaching  as  if  nothing  had 
happened.  The  whole  transaction  bears  the  mark  of  the 
utmost  simplicity  and  naturalness.  The  man  was  not 
sought  out  for  the  miracle's  sake  :  he  uttered  no  petition, 
was,  one  may  believe,  taken  by  surprise  altogether  by  the 
sudden  operation  ;  and  though  he  had   faith  enough  to  go 

2  G 


4SO  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

down  the  Temple  hill  to  the  Pool  of  Siloam,  it  was  probably 
with  no  more  than  a  wondering  thrill  of  the  strange  possibility 
that  it  might  come  true  :  for  he  was  no  believer,  not  a  person 
of  awakened  intelligence  at  all :  the  great  prophet  of  Nazareth 
about  whom  all  men  wondered,  and  whose  character  had 
been  so  hotly  discussed  in  these  very  precincts,  being  to  him 
only  "  a  man  called  Jesus."  But  when  he  "  came  seeing," 
according  to  the  brief  and  simple  narrative,  meeting  the 
worshippers  going  up  to  the  Temple,  and  all  the  neighbours 
who  had  known  him  all  his  life,  a  growing  commotion  arose. 
There  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  he  hastened  back  again 
to  thank  his  deliverer  as  would  have  seemed  natural,  nor 
is  there  any  sign  about  him  of  anything  higher  than  a 
shrewd  practical  intelligence,  appreciating  the  advantage  he 
had  gained  and  nothing  more.  He  does  not  proclaim  the 
wonder  to  the  world,  but  comes  back  soberly,  a  prosaic 
person,  pleased,  no  doubt,  and  happy  in  his  restoration,  but 
not  demonstrative,  nor  even  roused  to  any  enthusiasm  by 
the  wonderful  gift  which  he  had  received. 

And  now  once  more  the  scene  of  popular  excitement 
and  questioning  which  the  Evangelist  John  has  so  special 
a  gift  of  rendering,  rises  before  us.  The  startled  people 
collected  round,  growing  into  a  crowd,  as  the  well-known 
beggar  of  the  gate,  the  blind  man  to  whom  they  had  given 
their  alms  as  they  went  to  worship  for  years,  met  them, 
with  open  eyes  walking  back  towards  his  usual  post.  There 
arose  immediately  a  babel  of  voices  questioning  and  answer- 
ing. "  Is  not  this  he  that  sat  and  begged  ?  "  some  saying 
"  He  is  like  him,"  others  "  This  is  he."  The  man  himself,  less 
excited  it  would  appear  than  the  spectators,  at  once  inter- 
posed to  acknowledge  his  identity  and  to  explain  what  had 
happened.  The  inconceivable  calm  of  his  attitude  amid 
the  excitement  of  the  people  is  wonderful  to  behold.  He 
seems  as  if  he  might  be  disposed  to  ask  what  all  the  fuss 
was  about.  "  A  man  that  is  called  Jesus  made  clay,  and 
anointed  mine  eyes,  and  said  unto  me,  Go  to  the  pool  of 
Siloam,  and  wash  :  and  I  went  and  washed,  and  I  received 
sight."      Then    said    they  unto    him   "  Where   is  he  ? "      He 


CHAP.  II  MESSIAS  451 

said  "  I  know  not."  Some  zealots,  it  would  appear,  now 
joined  the  crowd,  roused  by  the  name,  scenting  again  a 
controversy,  a  prosecution,  a  breach  of  the  law  of  the 
Sabbath,  in  this  sudden  reappearance  of  the  Galilean  ;  and 
hurried  the  object  of  the  miracle  off  to  the  Pharisees,  perhaps 
to  the  office  of  the  Sanhedrim,  perhaps  to  some  lesser 
bureau  of  government,  where  he  might  be  examined  at 
length.  The  story  goes  on  with  an  extraordinary  fulness  of 
life  and  nature.  Finding  it  impossible  to  deny  the  fact 
which  was  before  their  eyes,  the  officials  confused  him  with 
questions,  demanding  his  opinion — which  could  have  so  little 
to  do  with  the  matter  !  finally  sending  for  his  parents,  poor 
bewildered  people  who  were  yet  wise  enough  to  decline  to 
answer  compromising  questions,  and  to  refer  their  examiners 
to  the  chief  actor  himself.  "  We  know  that  this  is  our  son, 
and  that  he  was  born  blind,"  they  reply ;  "  but  by  what 
means  he  now  seeth,  or  who  hath  opened  his  eyes,  we  know 
not :  he  is  of  age,  ask  him  ;  he  shall  speak  for  himself." 
The  once-blind  man  seems  to  have  been  gradually  aroused 
by  the  fight  going  on  over  him.  His  faculties  awakened 
as  his  eyesight  had  done :  his  shrewd  natural  sense  saw  at 
once  the  fallacy  of  the  angry  assertions  of  his  questioners. 
"  Herein  is  a  marvellous  thing,"  he  cried  at  length,  "  that  ye 
know  not  from  whence  he  is,  and  yet  he  hath  opened 
mine  eyes."  Among  the  fruitless,  factious  reasonings  of 
the  disturbed  officials,  striving  to  convince  themselves  and 
others  that  what  they  saw  was  not  the  fact,  the  shrewd 
untrained  beggar  of  the  Temple  gates  stands  forth  as  the 
representative  of  sound  sense  and  reason,  unbiassed  even  by 
the  gratitude  which  he  owes,  but  does  not  seem  to  be  in 
any  way  strongly  affected  by. 

In  the  meantime,  while  that  argument  went  on,  all 
would  seem  to  have  been  quiet  in  the  Temple  above.  The 
most  continuous  discourse  which  has  yet  been  reported  to 
us  in  Jerusalem,  Jesus  seems  to  have  delivered  without 
interruption  that  day  :  not,  we  may  be  certain,  without  an 
audience,  but  one  most  likely  of  an  unpolitical  kind,  the 
daily  worshippers  who  never  failed,  with  perhaps  a  greater 


452  THE  FINAL  TRAGEDY  part  iv 

leaven  than  usual  of  strangers  and  simple  folk  bound  to  no 
official  maintenance  of  ritual  and  tradition.  One  can 
imagine  the  various  committees  of  the  Sanhedrim  occupied 
with  the  new  wonder  that  had  been  brought  before  them, 
messengers  running  to  and  fro  with  one  communication 
after  another,  and  ever-new  precautions  to  be  taken  to  keep 
this  fact  from  the  knowledge  of  the  multitude  :  while  all  the 
time  an  act  more  great,  the  enunciation  of  the  great  truths 
of  the  Gospel,  went  on  undisturbed.  Once  more  as  always 
at  Jerusalem  it  is  his  own  great  and  unique  mission,  de- 
clared in  the  fullest  terms,  which  our  Lord  explains  to  his 
hearers,  without  compromise  or  faltering.  "  I  am  the  door  of 
the  sheep,"  by  which  alone  they  can  enter  the  fold.  "  I  am 
the  good  shepherd  :  I  lay  down  my  life  for  the  sheep.  I 
lay  down  my  life,  that  I  may  take  it  again.  No  man  taketh 
it  from  me,  but  I  lay  it  down  of  myself  I  have  power  to 
lay  it  down,  and  I  have  power  to  take  it  again.  This 
commandment  I  have  received  of  my  Father."  Such  words 
as  these  had  been  already  said  privately  to  the  Apostles  on 
several  occasions,  but  had  been  received  only  with  bewilder- 
ment and  never  understood  until  after  everything  was 
accomplished.  Now  they  were  proclaimed  in  the  most 
public  place  of  Jerusalem,  a  mystery  which  was  plain  as 
the  daylight  afterwards,  but  now,  what  ?  nothing  but 
blasphemy. 

All  our  Lord's  addresses  delivered  at  Jerusalem  are,  we 
repeat,  of  the  same  nature.  He  does  not  repeat  there 
the  teaching  of  the  Galilean  hills.  All  that  he  says  at 
Jerusalem  is  blasphemy — or  else  it  is  true.  There  is  no 
middle  course.  With  the  rulers,  the  judges,  the  learned  of 
his  nation,  he  attempts  no  compromise  at  any  time.  To 
them  he  does  not  show  himself  merely  as  a  benign  instructor, 
the  preacher  of  a  new  and  divine  code  of  faith  and  practice. 
It  is  his  credentials  which  he  places  before  them,  the  high 
assertion  of  his  office,  the  claim  of  a  position  and  authority 
to  which  theirs  is  as  nothing.  The  poor  to  whom  it  was 
one  sign  of  his  divine  mission  that  the  Gospel  was  preached 
were  no  judges  in  that  question.      The  Pharisees,  the  Scribes, 


CHAP.  II  MESS/AS  453 

the  priests,  were  the  representatives  of  the  government  of 
Israel,  the  only  tribunal  of  doctrine,  the  interpreters  of  the 
law  and  the  prophets.  And  the  words  which  he  addressed 
to  them  or  within  their  hearing  were  emphatically  what  they 
declared  them  to  be — blasphemy  :  or  else  the  only  truth  for 
the  salvation  of  Israel  and  of  mankind. 

It  could  not  be  without  a  purpose  that  this  great  differ- 
ence was  made.  And  the  words  which  he  uttered  in  the 
Temple  court  while  all  the  commotion  over  the  blind  beggar 
was  going  on  in  private,  form  the  fullest  and  most  connected 
discourse  in  which  it  is  presented  before  us.  The  teaching  of 
Jesus  is  never  without  this  great  claim  :  but  in  Jerusalem  it 
is  almost  the  claim  alone  which  is  his  subject.  He  is  the 
living  water,  the  light  of  the  world,  the  Good  Shepherd — 
finally,  the  one  and  only  being  in  the  human  race  who  /ays 
down  his  life  that  he  may  take  it  again.  Martyrs  there  have 
been  before  and  since,  sufferers  involuntary,  yet  not  unwilling, 
consenting  to  God's  decrees  ;  but  never  one  of  whom  this 
could  be  said,  who  would  dare  to  say  it.  Blasphemy,  who 
could  doubt  it? — or  else — :  The  alternative  was  plain. 

And  who  can  wonder  that  after  the  uninterrupted  utter- 
ance of  that  Sabbath  morning  there  should  have  been  "  a 
division  among  the  Jews  for  these  sayings "  ?  Not  long 
could  that  calm  last.  He  who  did  not  come  to  bring  peace 
but  a  sword,  in  this  special  region,  to  that  organisation  which 
it  was  his  mission  to  replace  and  transform  if  not  to  destroy, 
could  not  long  be  left  to  tell  the  wondrous  tale  of  his  own 
being  and  office  undisturbed.  Much  he  had  said  that  was 
wonderful  before,  but  never  anything  so  wonderful  as  this. 
"  Many  of  them  said.  He  hath  a  devil  and  is  mad," — what 
wonder  ?  Take  the  words  alone  and  they  were  more  than 
madness,  they  were  blasphemy,  and  the  most  tremendous 
assumption  ever  made  by  man.  Yet  those  who  looked  upon 
him,  who  followed  the  discourse  to  its  end  and  studied  the 
speaker,  knew  that  these  were  not  the  words  of  him  that  hath 
a  devil,  and  that  never  man  spake  like  this  man.  And  evi- 
dently by  this  time  the  news  of  the  last  miracle  had  spread 
among  the  crowd  and   moved   the  baser  sort,  so  that  even 


454  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

the   Pharisees  had  begun   to  ask :    "  Can    a  devil   open  the 
eyes  of  the  blind  ?  " 

The  Apostle  pauses  here   to  give  a   touch  of  local  de- 
scription.     "  It  was  winter,  and  Jesus  walked  in   the  temple 
in     Solomon's     porch,"    which    is    believed    to    have    been 
the    great    cloister    running    along   the    eastern    wall,   which 
rested   upon  the  vast  vaults  still   existing  called   Solomon's 
stables,  and  looked  towards  the  Mount  of  Olives.      Like  the 
Greek   philosophers,  the   Hebrew  teachers  walked   under  the 
sheltering  portico  surrounded   by  their  disciples,  and   talked 
and   taught  and  explained,  the  spectators  about  ever  ready 
to  suggest  a  doubt  or  ask  a  question.      There  no  doubt  it 
was   that   he   had  found   the  blind   man    in   the  morning  in 
some  sheltered  corner,  waiting  for  the  alms  of  the  passers-by 
who  knew  him  and  his  habitual  seat.      The  whole  scene  is 
clear  as  if  it  had  occurred  yesterday.      And  something  of  the 
bewildered  confusion   of  the  officials  who  wrangled   over  the 
beggar,   incapable   of  denying    the    wonder  that   was  before 
their  eyes,  seems  to  have  filled  the  minds  of  the  ruling  class 
in   the  portico  :    once   more    brought  face   to   face   with    this 
strange  Prophet  who  appeared  and  disappeared  in  so  sudden 
a  way,  and   whom  perhaps  they  had  hoped   after  so  long  an 
interval  to  have  been  rid   of:    as  they  met  and   stopped   and 
discussed  among  themselves,  ever  eyeing  him  who  passed  and 
repassed  in   that  public  walk,  talking  with  those  about  him. 
At  length  some  one  more  impetuous  made  himself  the  spokes- 
man of  the  rest,  backed  up  no  doubt  by  a  band  that  pressed 
behind  him.      "  How  long  dost  thou  make  us  to  doubt  ?      If 
thou   be  the   Christ,  tell   us  plainly."      The  interpellation   is 
rude  and  abrupt,  and  no  doubt  many  of  the  questioners  were 
burning  for  an  answer  which  should  justify  them   in  seizing 
him    then   and    there.       Our    Lord's   reply  is   given   from    a 
height  of  divine  calm   which   it  is    evident  exasperated  his 
questioners  beyond   bearing.      It  would  seem   to  have  been 
half  addressed  to  them  and   half  a  continuation   to  his  own 
immediate  followers  of  the  foregoing  discourse.      "  I  have  told 
you,  and  ye  believed   not,"  he  says  to  his  angry  questioners  : 
"  the  works  that  I  do  in  my  Father's  name,  they  bear  witness 


CHAi'.  II  MESS/AS  455 

of  iiie  :  but  ye  believe  not ;  because  ye  are  not  of  my  sheep." 
And  then  was  it  ?  half  turning  to  the  more  intimate  band 
around  him,  that  he  said  : 

"  My  sheep  hear  my  voice,  and  I  know  them,  and  they 
follow  me  :  and  I  will  give  unto  them  eternal  life  ;  and  they 
shall  never  perish,  neither  shall  any  pluck  them  out  of 
my  hand.  My  Father,  which  gave  them  me,  is  greater  than 
all :  and  none  is  able  to  pluck  them  out  of  my  Father's 
hand.      I  and  my  Father  are  one." 

Could  there  be  a  more  complete  answer,  a  more  thor- 
ough satisfaction  of  their  desire  for  a  blasphemous  utterance 
than  this  ?  And  some  of  them  were  transported  with  rage 
and  horror  and  took  up  stones  to  stone  him.  These  missiles 
must  have  fallen  from  their  hands  when  he  turned  upon 
them,  ever  calm,  and  asked  for  which  of  the  works  he  had 
done  they  stoned  him  ?  an  expression  which  looks  as  if  they 
had  actually  begun  to  hurl  at  him  the  first  pieces  of  marble 
or  stone  they  could  pick  up,  fragments  of  the  perpetual 
reparation  of  the  Temple.  "  For  a  good  work  we  stone  thee 
not,  but  for  blasphemy,"  they  cry.  And  surely  it  was  blas- 
phemy, the  most  unhesitating,  the  most  assured,  blasphemy, 
which  by  no  possible  excuses  could  be  explained  away. 

It  is  most  curious  that  at  the  final  trial  when  Jerusalem 
was  ransacked  to  procure  witnesses  against  Jesus,  no  one  of  the 
men  who  seized  those  stones  in  their  rage,  who  heard  him 
say  "  I  and  my  Father  are  one,"  who  listened,  scarcely  able 
to  contain  themselves,  to  his  assertion  that  he  could  lay 
down  his  life  and  take  it  again,  produced  themselves  to  prove 
these  manifest  blasphemies.  Had  they  become  his  followers  ? 
were  they  so  shaken  by  the  majestic  truth  in  him  that  they 
dared  not  bear  that  witness  which  would  have  been  con- 
clusive ?  Certain  it  is  that  only  some  trumpery  accusation 
about  destroying  the  Temple  to  which  nobody  gave  the  least 
faith  was  brought  against  him  :  and  the  hearers  of  these 
extreme  words  were  silent  It  is  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able .secondary  details  in  the  history. 

But  he  had  now  done  all  that  was  needful  in  his 
proclamation  of  his  mission.      He  withdrew  from  amidst  the 


456  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  tart  iv 

gathering  crowd.  His  time  was  not  yet :  there  were  still 
things  to  be  done  and  things  to  be  said  which  made  him 
conclude  this  portion  of  his  ministry  summarily  to  avoid  a 
premature  end.  If  there  was  anything  supernatural  in  his 
disappearance  from  among  the  crowd  we  are  not  told. 
When  they  sought  him  to  take  him  he  was  gone  :  and  for  a 
few  months  more  he  returned  to  the  life  of  the  wandering 
prophet  and  teacher,  with  this  difference,  that  he  went  to  his 
own  Galilee  no  more. 

The  place  to  which  Jesus  and  his  disciples  betook  them- 
selves was  that  spot  on  the  other  side  of  the  river  "  beyond 
Jordan,  in  the  place  where  John  at  first  baptized,"  where  he 
remained  fqjj  some  time  sought  out  by  many,  and  pursued 
by  questioners,  by  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  by  all  the  old  traps 
and  snares  in  conversation  to  which  he  had  been  used,  as 
well  as  to  many  touching  incidents  and  appeals.  Many  of 
the  most  remarkable  of  the  parables  were  told  among 
the  people  of  this  region,  to  whom  his  teaching  was 
new,  and  who  came  out  in  crow^ds  to  meet  and  to 
attend  him  wherever  he  went.  That  the  general  interest 
was  very  great  is  clear  from  every  word.  The  rulers 
from  every  synagogue,  the  lawyers  and  learned  classes, 
and  those  Pharisees  who  occupied  the  principal  place  in 
every  community,  seem  to  have  come  out  from  every  city 
and  village  to  hear  this  man  whom  so  many  asserted  to  be 
the  Messiah,  but  some  an  inspired  demoniac  casting  out 
devils  through  Beelzebub  the  prince  of  the  devils.  The 
wondering  crowd  followed  him  everywhere,  pushing  even 
into  his  private  conversations  with  his  disciples,  following 
the  pilgrim  band  with  a  rapt  attention.  Sometimes  he 
turned  from  those  intimate  conversations,  in  his  walks 
through  that  warm  and  flow^cry  region  where  the  early 
spring  began  to  bloom,  and  the  iris  stood  up  in  sheaves  of 
snowy  blossoms  about  the  way,  to  throw  forth  a  little 
apologue,  a  story  to  keep  and  ponder  in  the  hearts  of  the 
common  folk.  The  grain  of  mustard-seed  which  grew  and 
waxed  into  a  tree,  the  leaven  which  was  hidden  in  the  dry 
mass  of  meal  till   it  pervaded   the  whole,  the  emphatic  tale 


MESSIAS  457 


of  the  fig-tree  which  bore  no  fruit  and  was  condemned,  yet 
spared  till  the  husbandman  had  dug  about  its  roots  and 
given  it  another  chance  for  life  :  all  short,  all  full  of  mean- 
ing, teaching  their  lesson  with  one  vivid  illustration  from 
the  common  objects  about.  His  more  intimate  intercourse 
with  his  disciples  seems  to  have  been  chiefly  directed  to 
their  encouragement  and  the  strengthening  of  their  faith 
and  trust  in  time  to  come.  He  bids  them  to  look  at  the 
birds  twittering  upon  every  bush,  things  of  no  account,  yet 
not  one  of  them  forgotten  before  God.  He  bids  them  con- 
sider the  lilies  of  the  field  which  toil  not  rtor  spin,  yet  are 
arrayed  as  never  was  Solomon  in  all  his  glory :  how  much 
more  value  are  they  than  the  sparrows,  how,  much  more 
than  the  flowers  ?  When  they  are  brought  before  the 
magistrates  and  into  the  synagogues  to  answer  for  them- 
selves, he  bids  them  take  no  thought  what  they  are  to 
say,  "  For  the  Holy  Ghost  shall  teach  you  in  that  same 
hour  what  ye  ought  to  say."  How  troubled  and  perplexed 
they  must  have  been  as  they  listened,  not  knowing  what 
he  could  mean,  nor  why  it  was  necessary  thus  to  comfort 
their  hearts  beforehand,  as  for  some  mysterious  need  yet 
to  come  ;  and  how  their  excitement  would  be  relieved 
yet  disappointed  when  he  turned  aside  and  looked  at  the 
crowd  behind  and  spoke  his  parable,  leaving  the  germ  of 
Divine  story  to  quicken  and  fructify  in  the  common  soil, 
who  may  venture  to  describe  ?  They  could  not  shut  their 
ears  to  the  repeated  references  he  made  to  something  that 
was  about  to  be  accomplished  at  Jerusalem,  which  would 
make  the  next  Passover  a  great  era  to  them  all  :  but,  per- 
haps, in  the  dread  anxiety  and  sense  of  approaching  fate, 
would  turn  their  faces  from  it,  rather  than  confront  that 
mysterious  catastrophe  of  which  no  one  could  tell  what  it 
was  to  be. 

Everything  seems  to  become  more  emphatic  as  the 
stream  of  life  thus  rushes  towards  its  end.  The  parables, 
save  in  one  or  two  cases,  are  shorter,  more  condensed,  cut 
as  it  were  in  the  stone.  The  Pharisee  and  the  publican  in 
the  Temple,  which  stands  out  like  a  picture,  not  with  the 


4S8  THE  FINAL  TRAGEDY  tart  iv 

soft  touch  of  the  earlier  general  teaching,  but  such  a  con- 
trast as  no  one  could  forget :  the  man  who  bade  his  soul 
to  take  rest,  to  eat  and  drink  and  be  merry  since  he  had 
stores  laid  up  for  many  years — have  a  character  far  more 
intense  and  energetic  than  such  allegories  as  that  of  the 
sower,  the  wheat  and  the  tares,  and  many  which  he  had 
spoken  in  the  early  days  of  his  career,  seated  on  the  grassy 
hillside  or  in  his  little  ship.  His  voice  is  now  that  of  one 
who  has  no  time  to  lose. 

And  yet  the  band  must  have  lingered  in  the  deep  vale 
of  Jordan  where  the  spring  came  sooner  than  elsewhere,  and 
where  the  people  who  had  been  the  first  hearers  of  John  the 
Baptist  dwelt,  with  his  revelation  in  their  minds,  doubly  eager 
to  hear  and  see  this  man  of  whom  John  had  spoken,  and  to 
determine  for  themselves  if  he  were  in  truth  the  Messias  of 
whom  that  son  of  the  wilderness  had  proclaimed  himself  the 
forerunner.  There  seem  to  have  been  constant  comparisons 
of  his  preaching,  of  his  life  and  work,  with  those  of  Jesus. 
"  John  did  no  miracle  :  but  all  things  that  John  spake  of 
this  man  were  true."  There  could  be  no  closer  test  of  John's 
testimony  than  this  progress  through  the  very  district  that 
had  rung  with  it,  and  in  which  there  would  be  a  natural 
inclination  to  exalt  him  at  the  expense  of  any  rival.  No 
doubt,  the  eagerness  of  the  crowd  that  followed  Jesus  where- 
ever  he  went,  to  see  a  miracle,  must  have  been  its  strongest 
general  motive  :  but  there  is  no  sign  that  our  Lord  did  any- 
thing to  satisfy,  even  in  that  accidental  way  in  which  most 
of  his  miraculous  works  were  done,  the  curiosity  of  the 
people.  Seldom  or  never,  at  any  time,  did  he  seek  an 
occasion  to  show  his  power.  It  flowed  from  him  when 
need  was,  the  alms  of  Godhead.  Here  was  no  wilderness 
to  demand  a  miraculous  meal,  the  thing  of  all  others  which 
had  moved  the  multitude  in  Galilee :  and  it  was  only  when 
human  need  appealed  to  him  that  the  Divine  arm  was 
raised. 

Yet  were  there  some  exceptions  to  this  reserve,  when 
the  need  did  present  itself.  At  the  entrance  of  a  certain 
village  on    the  way  there    stood    a    miserable    band    of  ten 


CHAf.  II  MESSJAS  459 

lepers,  not  approaching  closely,  as  was  forbidden  to  them, 
but  standing  afar  off,  moved  by  sudden  hope  as  the  rumour 
on  the  road  that  preceded  him  reached  their  ears.  It  is 
a  sight  that  any  traveller  may  see  at  this  day  in  that  un- 
changing East.  I  shall  never  forget  the  thrill  of  horror 
and  pity  and  strange  realisation  as  of  a  familiar  scene, 
that  moved  my  own  mind  at  the  first  sight  of  that  line 
of  dark  figures  muffled  and  shrouded,  yet  letting  a  dreadful 
face  or  shapeless  limb  appear  to  demonstrate  their  wretched- 
ness— seated  upon  the  edge  of  the  road  outside  a  smiling 
village,  with  their  cry  of  appeal  to  every  passer-by  and 
the  rattle  of  their  money-boxes.  Just  so  these  men,  dark 
shadows  with  veiled  faces  in  the  evening  sunshine,  must 
have  stood  as  he  approached,  clamouring  for  an  alms  more 
great  than  any  coin.  "  Go,  show  yourselves  to  the  priest," 
was  all  he  said,  in  a  pause  of  his  discourse  :  while  probably 
the  others  that  followed  were  seeking  out  what  minute  piece 
of  money  they  could  find  to  give  to  those  most  unhappy 
mendicants.  The  shout  with  which  they  must  have  started 
off  on  their  hurried  journey  to  fulfil  that  ceremonial  necessity 
which  stood  between  them  and  their  return  to  life — scarcely 
pausing  to  see  if  the  good  news  could  be  true,  was,  as  the 
reader  knows,  interrupted  by  but  one  who,  seeing,  perhaps, 
his  distorted  hand  take  back  some  form  of  a  human  member, 
changed  that  shout  into  a  cry  of  praise  to  God,  and  falling 
down  upon  his  face  gave  thanks  to  his  deliverer.  Was  it, 
perhaps,  for  the  more  utter  conviction  of  James  and  John 
who  had  desired  to  call  down  fire  from  heaven  on  the  hostile 
village  that  our  Lord  paused  to  remark  that  this  one  grateful 
soul  among  so  many,  only  eager  to  prove  their  emancipation, 
was  a  Samaritan  ;  and  that  the  benevolent  "  neighbour " 
whose  story  he  told  them  to  point  the  moral  of  perfect 
charity  was  of  that  despised  people  too  ? 

When  they  got  as  far  as  Jericho  upon  their  way,  another 
incident  followed.  There  must  always  have  been  some 
messengers  going  before  to  provide  lodging  and  food  for 
so  large  a  party,  not  to  speak  of  that  intangible  rumour 
which  goes  before  the  travellers  announcing  the  coming  of 


46o 


THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY 


any  notable  person,  such  as  somehow  arises  even  in  our 
own  northern  regions,  and  far  more  in  the  East.  The  bhnd 
man  by  the  wayside  heard  it,  and  roused  himself,  as  the 
lepers  had  done,  to  a  new  hope.  Perhaps  in  the  fellowship 
of  misery  he  might  have  heard  the  story  from  one  of  them 
hurrying  homewards  to  make  his  deliverance  known.  We 
see  incidentally  from  this  narrative  that  there  was  again 
a  multitude  accompanying  the  pilgrims  as  they  moved 
onward,  no  doubt  a  little  crowd  from   every  village    eager 


KHAN    ON   THE   ROAD   TO   JERICHO,    BY   TRADITION    THAT   OF    THE   GOOD   SAMARITAN 


to  hear,  and  still  more  to  see,  any  prodigy,  pressing  upon 
the  steps  of  the  wayfarers.  The  blind  beggar  by  the  way 
could  not  see  who  was  passing,  but  the  hum  of  the  multitude 
reached  his  eager  ears,  and  he  would  seem  to  have  begun 
his  cry  (possibly  as  he  was  in  the  habit  of  beginning  his  sing- 
song appeal  for  charity)  before  it  was  possible  it  could  be  heard 
by  the  ear  to  which  it  was  addressed.  "  Jesus,  thou  Son  of 
David  !  Jesus,  thou  Son  of  David  !"  He  had  been  told  that  it 
was  Jesus  of  Nazareth  who  was  passing  by,  but  must  have 
had  some  other  knowledge  that  dictated  that  name.  It  would 
seem  that  the  Apostles  had  become  weary  by  this  time  of 
those    perpetual    outcries    of  the    multitude,    or   the    cynical 


CHAP.  II  MESSIAS  461 

ingratitude  of  the  lepers  may  have  disgusted  them — for 
those  of  them  who  were  in  advance  rebuked  the  bh'nd  man 
for  his  ceaseless  cry.  Not  so  their  Master,  who  heard  no 
cry  for  mercy  unmoved  ;  and  the  train  followed  on  to 
Jericho  with  the  once-blind  man  following,  surrounded,  we 
may  be  sure,  by  the  wondering  and  delighted  crowd,  strain- 
ing his  opened  eyes,  let  us  hope,  to  follow  him  whose 
benignant  countenance  had  been  the  first  thing  they  saw. 

The  wintry  weather  had  lost  all  its  rigour  in  that  ever 
warm  and  fertile  plain  where,  deep  below  the  level  of  the 
ocean,  summer  has  laid  out  a  teeming  garden  of  everlasting 
warmth  and  greenness.  The  dusty  convoy  had  wound 
along,  seen  like  a  moving  speck  across  the  levels  of  the 
landscape,  receiving  from  every  hamlet  its  contingent,  grow- 
ing as  it  proceeded,  with  those  that  followed  and  with  those 
that  came  out  to  meet  the  wonderful  travellers,  during  the 
whole  course  of  the  day  ;  and  Jericho  itself  had  by  this  time 
heard  the  news  of  the  miracle,  and  rushed  out  of  all  its 
streets  scarcely  more  eager  to  see  the  face  of  the  prophet 
than  that  familiar  figure  of  blind  Bartimseus,  known  to 
every  child,  the  beggar  on  the  roadside,  now  marching 
along  with  the  throng  of  wondering  attendants  and  eyes 
transfused  with  light  and  tears,  that  saw.  The  story  of 
the  humble  Zacchaeus,  a  man  of  so  little  account  in  his 
smallness  of  stature  and  unimportance,  that  he  would  have 
been  swept  by  in  the  progress  of  the  crowd  had  he  not 
climbed  up  into  the  tree  where  he  could  see  and  be  unseen, 
would  come  in  as  a  still  more  effective  parable  to  the 
Pharisees,  who  in  such  an  important  place  as  Jericho  must 
have  been  many,  and  whose  indignation  at  the  Teacher's 
preference  of  the  despised  tax-gatherer  would  break  all 
bounds.  From  that  city  of  the  plain,  lying  in  the  still 
heat  of  its  low  level,  Jesus  might  look  across  to  the  grim 
boundary,  the  weird  and  contorted  mountains  with  their 
convulsed  pinnacles  and  ravines  like  scars  in  the  rock, 
which  were  the  scene  of  that  early  and  mysterious  episode 
of  his  life  which  is  called  the  Temptation  :  that  was 
the  first  chapter  of  his  career,  it  was  meet  that  he  should 


462  THE  FINAL  TRAGEDY  tart  iv 

pass  by  a  spot  full  of  such  memories  on  his  way  to 
the  last. 

The  greatest  of  all  the  miracles,  the  crown  and  climax 
of  his  work  in  this  kind,  was  now  preparing ;  and  it  is 
almost  the  only  one  in  which  we  can  suppose  that  there 
was  any  predetermined  intention,  seeing  that  it  did  not 
like  all  the  rest  spring  from  the  necessities  or  occurrences 
of  the  moment.  In  the  case  of  Lazarus,  our  Lord  did 
visibly  await  the  time  in  which  this  final  act  should  have 
its  full  solemnity  as  a  sign  and  prodigy.  In  the  case  of 
the  young  man  at  Nain,  he  had  met  the  burial  procession 
and  seen  the  anguish  of  the  mother,  such  anguish  as,  being 
there  with  that  power  in  his  hand,  he  could  not  pass  by. 
But  in  this,  every  circumstance  was  full  of  meaning.  He 
did  not  for  once  bestir  himself  at  the  first  cry  of  the  appeal, 
"  he  whom  thou  lovest  is  sick  " :  but  remained  quietly  where 
he  was  "  for  two  days,"  leaving  the  sickness  to  run  its  fatal 
course.  Where  he  was  at  this  time  we  are  not  distinctly  told, 
except  that  it  was  beyond  the  bounds  of  Judea,  and  probably 
still  on  the  other  side  of  Jordan,  to  which  he  returned  after 
his  missionary  journeys  as  for  the  moment  his  settled  place 
of  abode.  When  at  the  end  of  two  days  he  proposed  to 
his  disciples  to  go  to  Judea,  he  was  surrounded  at  once 
by  anxious  remonstrances,  "  Master,  the  Jews  of  late  sought 
to  stone  thee  ;  and  goest  thou  thither  again  ?  "  This  would 
seem  to  establish  that  there  could  have  been  no  intermediate 
visit  to  Jerusalem,  since  that  attempt  to  stone  him  is  the 
last  recorded.  When  they  perceived  that  he  would  go, 
there  is  a  tragic  resignation  in  the  tone  of  the  disciples. 
"  Let  us  also  go,  that  we  may  die  with  him,"  says  Thomas, 
the  sceptic,  he  who  found  it  so  hard  to  believe  the  deeper 
mysteries  of  the  Gospel.  Clearly  he  perceived  what  was 
personal  and  positive  with  no  illusions. 

It  would  be  at  once  vain  and  presumptuous  to  retell  the 
story  of  that  most  affecting  episode.  "  Our  friend  Lazarus  " 
was  well  known  to  the  wandering  band,  who  probably  had 
found  rest  and  shelter  in  his  peaceful  village  many  a  night 
while  spending  the  day  amid  the  contentions  of  Jerusalem. 


CHAP.  II  MESS/AS  463 

The  name  of  Bethany  must  have  meant  hospitality,  a  kind 
welcome,  and  peaceful  repose  to  them  all,  far  enough  off 
from  the  city  to  escape  all  its  noise  and  distractions,  yet 
not  beyond  the  limit  of  a  Sabbath  day's  journey,  or  an 
evening  walk  into  the  grateful  quiet,  the  rustle  of  the  corn 
and  the  soft  shade  of  olive-trees.  They  were  so  much 
concerned,  however,  for  their  Master's  safety,  which  was 
their  chief  thought,  that  anxiety  for  Lazarus  seems  to  have 
held  a  very  secondary  place  in  their  minds  :  and  it  is  evident 
that  they  took  their  way  with  great  reluctance  towards  the 
country  in  which  his  far  more  precious  life  was  in  danger. 

It  must  have  been  with  the  sense  of  an  escape,  temporary 
at  least,  from  an  ever-threatening  peril,  that  after  all  the 
overwhelming  emotion  of  these  scenes  at  Bethany,  the  little 
band  closed  once  more  around  their  Lord,  and  encircled 
him  as  he  went  down  again  from  the  pleasant  slope,  where 
all  the  winds  blow  sweet  and  fresh  over  the  hill-country  of 
Judea,  into  the  valley  of  the  Jordan  and  along  the  northern 
road  by  which  as  yet  no  pilgrims  were  coming  to  the  feast 
This  time  there  arc  no  further  details  of  a  public  mission. 
The  little  band  goes  silently  away  into  the  obscurity  and 
quiet,  "  to  a  city  called  Ephraim,"  which  no  one  has 
identified,  but  which  probably  lay  to  the  north-east  of 
Jerusalem  towards  Samaria,  but  on  the  edge  of  the  wilder 
country  about  Jordan — out  of  the  common  route,  perhaps 
still  within  sight  of  those  rocky  and  awful  mountains  of 
the  Quarantania  with  their  terrible  caflons  and  terraces, 
where  the  Temptation  had  taken  place.  The  town  could 
have  been  at  no  great  distance  from  Jerusalem,  as  we 
measure  distances,  but  lost  in  the  depths  of  an  unknown 
region  to  those  who  travelled  everywhere  on  foot  and  who 
avoided  dangers  by  keeping  to  the  accustomed  way. 

But  how  long  Jesus  remained  there,  or  if  he  did 
anything  but  rest  in  solemn  anticipation  of  all  the 
mysteries  that  were  about  to  be  accomplished,  we  arc 
not  told.  As  it  was  the  time  of  the  Passover  which  was 
to  be  the  moment  of  his  supreme  offering,  and  he  desired 
"with  desire,"  that  is  with  all  his  heart,  to  accomplish  those 


464  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  tv 

rites  for  the  last  time,  and  eat  that  common  supper  with 
his  disciples,  before  fulfilling  and  abolishing  the  great 
typical  sacrifice,  it  was  essential  that  he  should  remain 
hidden  and  quiet  until  his  hour  had  come  ;  for  by  this 
time  the  factions  of  the  Jews  had  thrown  off  all  disguise, 
and  the  high  priests  had  given  orders  that  he  was  to  be 
taken  into  custody  wherever  found.  No  doubt  Jerusalem 
had  been  stirred  to  its  depths  by  the  last  and  greatest 
miracle  which  he  had  accomplished  in  that  hurried  and 
unexpected  appearance  between  two  periods  of  exile,  when 
no  one  looked  for  him,  appearing  and  disappearing  again 
before  any  warrant  or  officer  could  be  sent  after  him. 
And  now  absolute  silence  enveloped  him  around,  for  a 
few  weeks  perhaps — it  could  scarcely  be  more  : — before  the 
supreme  moment  came  of  the  world's  history,  and  the  climax 
of  his  work  on  earth. 


■'^  '^  \c  1/7 /> 


4^^»^.¥ 


2  H 


CHAPTER   III 

THE    END    OF    THE   JEWISH    DISPENSATION 

It  is  a  work  beyond  the  necessities  of  this  book,  and  beyond, 
I  am  glad  to  think,  at  once  the  powers  and  the  requirements 
of  a  writer  of  the  nineteenth  century,  to  rewrite  or  to  attempt 
to  ampHfy  or  render  more  clear  the  great  story  of  that 
Divine  tragedy  accomplished  at  Jerusalem,  at  once  the 
crowning  glory  and  condemnation  of  the  little  Judean  city, 
thus  made  into  the  centre  of  history,  a  place  of  wonder  and 
awe  and  everlasting  interest  to  all  the  world,  the  end  of  so 
much  that  is  all-important  to  mankind,  the  beginning  and 
point  of  departure  to  so  much  that  is  more  important  still. 
We  may  almost  say  with  St.  John  that  if  all  that  has  been 
written  since  of  commentary  upon  that  event  were  collected 
together,  "  the  whole  world,"  certainly  all  its  known  libraries 
and  storehouses,  would  not  be  able  to  contain  them.  It  has 
been  the  one  subject  of  which  the  mind  of  Christendom  has 
never  tired.  It  has  penetrated  the  deepest  darkness,  and 
inspired  the  simplest  and  the  strongest  souls.  It  is  well  for 
cultured  persons  at  their  ea.se  to  speak  of  the  criticisms  that 
have  abolished  Christianity,  or  the  civilisations  that  have 
outgrown  it,  or  the  supposed  Service  of  Man  that  has 
superseded  it.  The.se  little  .systems  have  their  day,  rising 
perhaps  into  a  little  factitious  enthusiasm  from  time  to  time 
during  the  long  centuries,  dying  away  with  every  trifling 
generation  that  has  given  them  birth  :  but  nothing  can  ever 
obliterate  the  traces  of  that  agony  and  passion,  the  great 
Sufferer  upon  the  Cross,  the  .shining  figure  of  the  Resurrection 


468  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

morning.  What  a  mean  and  impoverished  world  would  that 
be  from  which  these  recollections  were  driven  !  But  such  a 
condition  is  one  which,  happily,  the  mind  cannot  conceive, 
even  the  very  assailants  of  these  heavenly  mysteries  having 
their  own  minds  and  the  atmosphere  they  breathe  so  per- 
meated by  them,  that  it  is  in  the  very  strength  of  that  breath 
of  life  that  they  sound  their  little  trumpets  against  the 
influence  which  permits  them  to  be. 

But  here  no  controversy  can  stand,  no  criticism 
find  place.  Many  martyrs  have  died,  but  none  have 
done  more  than  approach  the  crucified  feet  of  Him 
who  died  on  Calvary;  many  great  images  have  stood 
forth  to  men,  heroes  and  prophets  and  kings,  the  crea- 
tions of  an  inspiration  little  less  than  divine :  but  no 
poet  has  ever  imagined  and  no  history  has  ever  produced 
any  being  so  great,  so  noble,  so  pure,  as  to  reach  the  level  of 
the  supreme  and  awful,  the  tender  and  familiar  image  of  Love 
Incarnate.  They  group  themselves  around,  behind  him,  at 
his  feet,  though  they  may  not  have  known  him,  enveloped 
in  a  great  humbleness,  saying  every  one.  We  are  unprofitable 
servants  ;  while  on  his  lips  alone  we  feel  it  no  blasphemy, 
we  acknowledge  it  as  of  right  that  they  should  say,  "  I  lay 
down  my  life,  that  I  may  take  it  again."  What  are  miracles, 
the  little  rays  of  light  that  penetrate  through  the  chinks  of 
the  cloud  ?  He  is  the  great  Miracle  whom  no  theory  has 
ever  explained.  When  there  can  be  found  in  all  the  extended 
worlds  which  have  been  discovered  since  that  day,  in  all 
the  planets  and  systems  which  were  but  lights  to  rule  the 
night  in  the  simple  apprehension  of  his  contemporaries, 
another  like  him — there  may  then  be  found  a  spot  of  ground 
on  which  to  place  the  lever  which  will  move  the  world  :  but 
not  until  then. 

He  would  seem  to  have  returned  to  Jerusalem  for  the 
Passover,  which  in  its  full  meaning  was  to  be  the  last,  quietly 
and  without  observation  before  the  time  of  the  ordinary 
pilgrims.  When  those  who  were  more  devout  "  coming  up 
to  purify  themselves  "  some  time  before  the  feast,  arrived  in 
these  sacred   courts,  they  again  asked   each  other  in  whispers 


CHAP.  Ill      THE  END  OF  THE  JEWISH  DISPENSATION  469 

and  groups  apart :  "  What  think  ye,  that  he  will  come  up  to 
the  feast  ?  "  Nobody  could  doubt  what  would  happen  if  he 
did  so,  unless  he  worked  some  supreme  miracle  such  as  all 
had  hoped  for,  and  called  from  heaven  ten  legions  of  angels, 
all  glorious  in  heavenly  armour,  who,  with  the  very  dazzling 
sight  of  them,  should  drive  the  cohorts  of  Imperial  Rome  out 
of  the  rejoicing  country,  and  make  Jerusalem  not  only  free 
but  triumphant  over  all  the  countries  and  kindreds  of  the 
world.  That  was  the  alternative  to  all  :  to  the  trembling 
souls  who  believed  on  him,  to  those  whose  position  was  that 
of  defying  him  to  prove  his  claim  :  and  to  the  very  priests 
and  Pharisees,  among  whom  perhaps  there  would  be  some 
who,  in  their  semi-patriotic  terror  lest  the  Romans  should 
take  away  their  name  and  nation,  and  in  their  more  real  alarm 
for  their  own  power  and  system  of  internal  government,  would 
yet  have  endured  personal  downfall  not  unwillingly  had  they 
been  able  thereby  to  obtain  such  a  miraculous  manifestation 
of  the  Messiah.  Great  agitation,  it  is  evident,  there  was 
everywhere,  the  Jewish  rulers  having  ordered  that  if  any  one 
knew  where  he  was  they  should  give  information  that  he 
might  be  taken. 

It  was  under  these  circumstances  that  he  appeared  sud- 
denly "  six  days  before  the  Passover  "  at  liethany — where  a 
feast  was  made  for  him.  The  place  was  no  doubt  ringing 
still  with  the  local  glory  of  that  miracle  which  is  its  distinction 
through  all  ages  :  and  nothing  can  be  more  natural  than  that 
many  should  come  to  this  entertainment  not  only  to  see 
Jesus,  but  Lazarus,  the  subject  of  that  wonderful  intervention. 
All  the  personages,  indeed,  of  the  great  drama  were  there, 
along  with  the  humble  good  man  who  says  no  word  and  makes 
no  sign  of  personal  identity,  he  who  had  Iain  four  days  in  his 
grave  in  what  wonderful  suspense,  or  revelation  of  the 
mystery  of  death,  there  is  not  a  word  to  tell  us  : 

Where  wert  thou,  brother,  those  four  days  ? 
There  lives  no  record  of  reply, 
Which,  showing  what  it  was  to  die. 

Had  surely  added  praise  to  praise. 

It    was   not   the   purpose  of  the   Redeemer  that  such  a 


470 


THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY 


revelation  should  be — enough  that   in  all  mysteries  we  know 
Him  who  is   the  solution  of  them   all.      And   from   Lazarus 


FROM    BETHANy,  LOOKING   TOWARDS   JERICHO 


there  comes  no  word,  nor  any  indication  what  manner  of 
man  he  was  :  "  Lazarus  was  one  of  those  that  sat  at  the 
table  with  him  " — a  man  known  to  the  whole  villafjc  and  all 


CHAi'.  in      THE  END  OF  THEJEWISH  DISPENSATION  471 

the  neighbours  who  crowded  about,  pointing  out  to  the 
Sabbath-day  visitors  from  Jerusalem,  the  man  who  had  died 
and  was  aUvc.  And  there  was  Martha,  the  kindly  soul, 
serving :  enough  for  her  to  follow  her  natural  uses,  to  bring 
the  bread  and  wine,  to  see  that  all  the  needs  of  the  guests 
were  supplied. 

Mary  had  another  thought  in  her  adoring  soul, — to 
do  her  Lord  honour,  to  pay  him  such  service  of  gratitude 
as  her  means  permitted.  Was  he,  perhaps,  footsore  with 
his  long  travelling,  the  lengthened  walks  by  rough  and 
stony  roads,  which  such  a  pilgrim  had  to  take  ?  She 
came  behind  him  as  he  lay  upon  the  couch,  and  poured 
her  costly  ointment  on  his  feet,  refreshing  and  cooling. 
"  And  the  house  was  filled  with  the  odour  of  the  ointment." 
A  sudden  pouring  forth  of  fragrance  is  a  recollection  that 
outlasts  many  a  more  important  matter :  and  John  remem- 
bered this  vividly  and,  perhaps,  the  start  with  which  he  himself, 
so  near  his  Master's  bosom,  would  look  round  to  ascertain 
what  caused  it,  and  see  the  woman  kneeling  at  those  beloved, 
weary  feet,  wiping  them  lightly  with  her  long  locks,  not  to 
take  the  refreshing  unguent  from  them,  as  a  cloth  would  have 
done  :  noticing,  too,  in  the  momentary  quick  flash  of  observa- 
tion, the  alabaster  box,  a  beautiful  thing  in  itself  above  her 
means,  in  which  it  had  been  enclosed,  and  the  astonishment 
of  the  poor  Galileans  to  whom  three  hundred  pence  was  no 
small  expenditure.  Their  little  chest  or  bag  would  con- 
tain no  such  sum,  and  the  first  thought  probably  of  all 
was  that  this  was  a  waste  and  extravagance,  or  at  least  an 
example  of  the  costly  ways  of  these  well-to-do  people  who 
so  honoured  the  Master. 

Judas,  only  coming  into  special  revelation  now,  who 
had  been  about  with  them  all  this  time  apparently  unsus- 
pected, managing  their  simple  affairs,  one  of  those  who 
were  sent  on  in  advance  to  provide  lodging  and  food  in 
the  villages,  was  the  one  to  break  out  in  indignation. 
Perhaps  he  knew  that  the  little  treasury  was  running 
low,  and  could  not  think  how  to  get  new  supplies  for  it : 
perhaps  the  rage  of  a  peculator  who  felt,  had  he  but  been 


472  THE  FINAL  TRAGEDY  part  iv 

given  that  alabaster  box,  that  he  might  have  made  up 
his  own  deficiencies  and  prevented  the  discovery  which  was 
imminent — was  in  his  heart.  In  the  latter  case  as  he  brooded 
over  his  troubles,  and  felt  shame  and  exposure  to  be  before 
him — which  is  the  most  likely  explanation  of  the  statement 
that  he  was  a  thief,  his  defalcations,  no  doubt,  being  found 
out  afterwards — he  may  have  missed  those  many  intimations 
of  an  approaching  end  which  the  Redeemer  had  made  as  he 
walked  and  talked  with  the  anxious  band,  who,  eagerly  as 
they  listened,  understood  so  little  :  or  if  he  comprehended 
them  by  the  light  of  his  own  trouble,  the  menace  of  an  end 
about  to  come  might  have  made  the  defaulter  more  and 
more  conscious  of  the  winding-up  and  the  exposure  before 
him.  Something  of  this  desperation,  so  familiar  to  the  most 
common  modern  fashions  of  evil,  must  have  stung  him  at  the 
sight  of  that  three  hundred  pence  which  was  thrown  away, 
and  driven  him  out  in  exasperation  to  make  his  fatal  bargain 
with  the  high  priests  ;  thus  covering  his  own  crime  with  a 
universal  explosion,  out  of  which  he  may  have  hoped  the 
Master  would  yet  escape  in  some  supernatural  way. 

Great  agitation  was  in  Jerusalem  when  it  was  known 
what  was  happening  in  Bethany.  It  would  have  been 
difficult  to  have  seized  Lazarus  for  no  better  reason  than 
that  he  had  been  raised  from  the  dead  :  yet,  no  doubt,  his 
very  existence  was  in  itself  so  strong  a  protest  against  their 
opposition,  so  perfect  an  answer  to  their  seeming -honest 
demand  for  proof  of  the  high  mission  of  his  Deliverer,  that 
he  was  to  the  priests  and  Pharisees  almost  as  dangerous  as 
his  Master.  And  now  there  surged  up  again  agitated  con- 
sultations in  the  Temple  how  to  destroy  both,  the  disciple 
with  the  Lord.  It  must  have  been  felt  by  all  in  the  city 
that  the  approaching  feast  was  a  crisis,  every  indication  of 
which  pointed  to  serious  national  difficulty.  That  the  claims 
of  the  Messias  might  awaken  such  a  popular  tumult  that  the 
Romans  would  take  away  both  name  and  nation,  was  perhaps 
to  some  a  real  alarm.  The  rulers  might  feel  that  the  present 
regime  in  which  they  themselves  were  supreme  was  to  be 
maintained   at  all   hazards,   even   at   the   risk   of  that   great 


CHAP.  Ill      THE  END  OF  THE  JEWISH  DISPENSATION  473 

much-prophesied  triumph  of  their  people,  which  had  been  for 
centuries  the  very  reason  of  their  existence  :  just  as  Herod 
believed  in  the  coming  of  a  sacred  and  heaven-appointed 
king,  yet  with  an  outburst  of  his  native  ferocity  made  sure, 
at  all  events,  as  he  hoped,  that  the  expected  prince  should 
not  come  in  his  day.  The  circle  of  thought  in  which  these 
anxious  rulers  moved,  the  obstinate  determination  of  the 
Sanhedrim  to  maintain  its  own  power  at  all  costs,  the  extra- 
ordinary unintentional  prophecy  of  the  high  priest,  to  his 
understanding  a  simple  statement  of  fact,  that  it  was  better 
one  man  should  die,  even  if  he  were  without  blame,  than  that 
the  whole  nation  should  perish  :  all  these  show  the  state  of 
mind  in  the  reigning  class  in  Jerusalem.  Some  of  them,  no 
doubt,  were  willing  that  prophecy  and  promise  should . 
perish  rather  than  that  their  own  state  should  be  disturbed. 
The  priests,  according  to  the  description  of  St.  Luke, 
were  of  the  sect  of  the  Sadducees,  whose  doctrines  were 
essentially  those  of  self-preservation  ;  and  the  other  sect 
of  the  Pharisees  believed  in  the  rigid  law  alone,  and 
nothing  else  as  the  means  of  salvation — a  law  which  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  had  at  certain  points  determinedly  set  aside.  It 
is  difficult  to  imagine  how  it  could  be  that  a  race  which  had 
been  held  together  by  this  very  hope  should  now  prove  itself 
ready  to  sacrifice  it  entirely,  in  order  to  secure  the  continu- 
ance of  its  own  existing  circumstances — circumstances  of 
bondage,  national  subjection  and  humiliation  :  yet  so  it  was. 
The  extraordinary  shortsightedness  of  humanity,  the  pre- 
vailing terror  of  the  unknown  and  inclination  to  maintain 
what  is  existing,  thus  acted  to  bring  about  the  tragedy  for 
which  all  the  world  was  waiting — notwithstanding  the  force 
of  expectation,  of  conviction,  of  proof  almost  universally 
accepted,  which  should  have  bound  the  rulers  of  this  strange 
people  to  instant  reception  of  the  often-promised  and  much- 
looked-for  Messiah. 

No  pilgrim,  I  think,  will  ever  forget  the  sensation, 
especially  if  it  is  unexpected,  which  bursts  upon  him  at  the 
turning  of  the  slope  of  that  road  from  licthany  to  Jeru.salcm. 
Skirting   cjuietly   along    the   side    of  the    hill    without    more 


474  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

thought  probably  than  is  always  present  in  the  mind  of  a 
traveller  who  enters  at  all  into  these  sacred  associations, 
we  suddenly  come  round  the  corner  of  the  winding  path 
upon  a  sight  which  takes  away  the  breath — Jerusalem  lying 
before  us  fully  spread  out  in  the  sun  with  all  her  white 
domes  and  shining  edifices,  from  the  height  of  Zion  to  the 
steep  slope  of  Moriah  under  the  Temple  wall,  vaguely  dis- 
appearing into  dimness  and  a  confusion  of  walls  and  roofs 
towards  the  north,  but  fully  distinguishable  on  the  south 
side,  with  its  walls  following  the  inequalities  of  height  and 
hollow,  and  the  broad  enclosure  immediately  facing  the  eye, 
where  once  the  Temple  stood,  and  where  now  stands  the 
Dome  of  the  Rock,  isolated  and  beautiful,  with  minaret  and 
.  dome  clustering  in  varied  groups  around  and  behind.  The 
pause  of  startled  realisation,  the  long-drawn  breath  of  an 
emotion  too  great  for  words,  the  wonderful  sense  of  standing 
there  in  one's  own  humble  person  where  he  had  certainly 
stood,  and  where  the  same  all-affecting  sight  had  met  his 
divine  eyes,  combine  to  give  to  such  a  moment  the  intense 
consciousness  as  of  a  crisis  in  life — not  diminished  by  the 
words  of  the  respectful  and  serious  guide,  himself  always 
grave,  so  that  his  demeanour  takes  nothing  from  the  sensa- 
tion, though  what  he  says  is  to  him  an  everyday  expression 
of  an  undoubted  fact.  "  This  is  sometimes  called  the 
Hosanna  road."  The  Hosanna  road !  Here  were  the  palm 
branches  scattered,  the  garments  laid  down — long  glistening 
leaves  and  humble  cloaks,  poor,  yet  blazing  with  the  many 
colours  of  the  East,  with  here  and  there  a  metallic  thread 
of  gold :  and  the  children  always  lovely  with  their  dark 
gleaming  eyes,  the  little  ones  whom  he  loved,  their  pretty 
heads  enveloped  in  kerchief  and  veil  against  the  sun,  their 
round  limbs  bare ;  and  behind  and  around  the  pilgrim  folk 
coming  up  to  keep  the  feast,  some  from  the  Judean  borders 
where  he  had  lately  been,  some  from  Galilee,  proud  to 
think  that  he  was  of  their  kindred,  all  given  over  to  that 
burst  of  emotion  and  enthusiasm,  blessing  him  who  came 
in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  the  King  of  Israel !  The  Temple 
stands    no    longer    on    Moriah,    the    work    of   the   ages    has 


CHAP.  Ill       THE  END  OF  THE  JEWISH  DISPENSATION 


475 


crumbled  into  dust  upon  those  slopes,  fire  and  flame  and 
convulsion  have  ravaged  that  city,  there  may  not  be  a  stone 
there  that  ever  felt  his  shadow  or  met  his  eye.  But  here 
he  stood,  whatever  may  be  the  changes  that  have  come  on 
all  around.  He  saw  the  Temple  with  its  splendid  cloisters 
crowning  the   plateau   of  that  hill   where  we  see  only  the 


SVKIAN    ClIILDKEN    WITH    lALM    IIKANCIIES 


exquisite  little  Moslem  dome  in  its  blue  and  white.  But, 
nevertheless,  as  we  do  now  our  Lord  paused  and  looked  at 
Jerusalem.  He  saw  what  John,  no  doubt,  saw  through  the 
glories  of  his  after-vision,  the  white,  shining,  blessed  place, 
like  a  bride  arrayed  for  her  husband.  "  O  Jerusalem, 
Jerusalem,  that  stonest  the  prophets."  O  city  doomed, 
yet  deathless !  The  glory  of  the  white  town  expands  and 
grows  blurred  and    broken    in   the  sight  of  the   late-coming 


476  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  tart  iv 

pilgrim,    child    of    the    modern    ages,    through    eyes    full    of 
irrestrainable  tears. 

The  entry  into  Jerusalem  would  thus  be  made  in  the 
happy  tumult  of  the  arriving  crowd,  with  much  joyful  com- 
motion such  as  accompanied  the  arrival  of  the  pilgrims, 
thankful  to  reach  the  end  of  their  journey,  welcomed  by 
many  friends,  and  adding  to  the  general  tide  of  festivity 
and  national  solemnity  which  they  had  come  to  share. 
Perhaps  it  was  the  shield  of  this  rural  company  pouring 
in  to  pay  its  vows,  which  gave  that  immunity  which  is  so 
strange  considering  all  that  had  gone  before,  to  our  Lord 
in  his  first  reappearance,  after  the  hot  discussions  that  had 
arisen  about  him,  and  the  orders  to  take  him  wherever  he 
might  be  found  which  had  already  been  given  to  the  police 
of  the  Temple.  According  to  the  Gospel  of  St.  Mark  he 
confined  himself  on  that  first  afternoon  to  visiting  once  more 
and  "  looking  round "  upon  the  courts  and  holy  places, 
retiring  to  Bethany  in  the  evening  ;  and  it  was  on  the  next 
day  that,  having  furnished  himself  with  "  a  scourge  of  small 
cords,"  he  drove  out  the  money-changers  from  their  booths, 
and  overturned  the  stalls  of  the  dove-sellers,  which  occupied 
the  court  of  the  Gentiles,  making,  no  doubt,  a  lively  market 
and  exchange,  a  place  of  gossip  and  levity  in  the  very 
entrance  to  the  Father's  house.  There  is  no  need  for 
sacrifices  now,  but  the  crowd  of  petty  merchants  in  the  court 
of  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre — and  even,  not  to  go 
so  far,  about  the  precincts  of  every  great  Catholic  cathedral — 
keeps  still  a  likeness  before  us  of  that  prevailing  impulse 
to  make  profit  of  the  worshippers,  which  probably  never 
reached  such  a  height  as  in  the  ample  court  of  the 
Temple,  buzzing  with  talk  and  barter,  which  the  pilgrims 
had  to  traverse  before  they  could  reach  the  place  of 
sacrifice  and  instruction  and  prayer.  It  is  said  that 
there  were  permanent  booths  established  here  belonging 
to  the  family  of  the  high  priest,  from  which  they  derived 
great  profit — thus,  with  a  cynical  absence  of  precaution, 
sanctioning  an  abuse  for  which  there  was  no  excuse  to 
be  made. 


CHAP.  Ill      THE  END  OF  THE  JEWISH  DISPENSATION 


477 


Evidently  the  feeling  of  all  that  was  most  serious  in  the 
multitude  was  entirely  in  sympathy  with  this  bold  and 
sudden  movement  of  reformation,  and  no  one  dared  to  say 
a  word  for  the  traffickers  as  they  were  sent  flying  headlong 
through  the  crowd  to  carry  their  complaint,  no  doubt,  to 
the  authorities  among  whom  neither  does  there  seem  to 
have  been   any  who  dared   openly  to  defend   them.      Even 


>N    Till';    nil. I.   (M-    KVIl.   COUS'SKl. 


the  priests  and  scribes  them.selves,  always  looking  for  an 
occasion  of  offence,  who,  roused  by  the  tumult,  came  crowd- 
ing about  the  Reformer  angry  and  questioning,  had  no 
open  objection  to  make  to  what  he  had  done.  "  By  what 
authority  docst  thou  these  things  ?  "  they  cried,  coming  hotly 
about  him  as  he  took  his  .seat,  the  brief  commotion  over, 
in  the  usual  place  of  the  teacher,  to  in.struct  all  who  came 
to  him.  Perhaps  there  had  been  already  a  concerted  action 
among  the  superior  people  to  try  their  wits  and  their 
philosophy   against   the    unlearned    prophet   before    he   was 


47S  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  tart  iv 

seized  and  silenced,  which  swelled  the  angry  impulse  by 
which  they  hurried  to  where  he  sat,  to  inquire  by  what 
right  he  took  upon  himself  to  do  what  they  were  aware 
they  ought  to  have  done — an  action  which  in  itself  they 
did  not  dare  to  criticise.  By  what  authority?  It  may  be 
replied  that  almost  everything  he  had  said  in  Jerusalem 
had  been  an  exposition  of  that  authority.  He  had  not 
spoken  in  those  Temple  courts  as  among  the  flowery  ways 
of  Galilee,  but  always,  as  it  were,  in  the  power  of  his  office, 
with  the  highest  claim,  the  most  distinct  announcement  of 
the  ground  on  which  he  stood  and  the  mission  with  which 
he  came.  To  ask  him  whose  last  words  among  tlfem  had 
been  the  marvellous  statement :  "  I  and-  my  Father  are  one  "  : 
blasphemy  beyond  conception  and  beyond  precedent,  if  not 
that  it  was  true,  what  was  his  authority,  was  but  going 
over  a  bygone  question.  And  whether  these  might  be  new 
inquirers  who  had  not  heard  that  statement,  whether  they 
desired  to  elicit  another  declaration  which  they  could  use 
against  him,  it  is  equally  evident  that  they  neither 
ventured  to  object  to  what  he  had  done,  nor  to  fulfil  the 
duty  which  would  seem  to  have  been  almost  demanded  of 
them,  and  lay  hold  upon  the  man  against  whom  the  rulers 
had  already  issued  their  warrant.  What  instinctive  terror 
or  awe  it  was  which  caused  their  hesitation,  whether  it  was 
concealed  under  the  pretence  of  a  design  to  collect  further 
and  further  evidence  against  him,  it  is  impossible  to  tell  : 
but  that  after  this  incident  as  before  it  no  hand  was  lifted 
to  arrest  him  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  of  details.  Our 
Lord  himself  referred  to  this  when  he  said  at  the  time  of 
his  betrayal — "  I  was  daily  with  you  in  the  temple,  and  ye 
took  me  not."  He  was  entirely  in  their  power,  taking  no 
precautions,  exposing  himself  indeed  both  to  individual  and 
public  retaliation  in  this  public  and  vehement  action  :  yet, 
it  needed  the  aid  of  the  midnight  darkness,  the  traitor 
disciple,  the  lonely  place,  to  put  courage  into  the  hearts  of 
the  Jewish  authorities  for  this  act. 

When   these   first  questioners  had  retired  confounded  by 
the    opposing   question    with    which    he    met   their    inquiry. 


CHAP.  Ill      THE  END  OF  THE  JEWISH  DISPENSATION  479 

and  which  they  dared  not  answer,  it  would  seem  that  others 
came  forward,  whether  by  a  scheme  concocted  beforehand, 
or  spontaneously,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  They  meant  to 
leave  him  no  ground  to  stand  on,  these  clever  reasoners  of 
the  sects,  each  persuaded,  in  his  turn,  of  his  power  to  non- 
plus this  unlearned  Galilean.  Was  it,  perhaps,  a  piece  of 
money  dropped  upon  the  pavement  by  a  terrified  money- 
changer as  he  fled  with  his  heavy  boxes,  which  was  picked 
up  and  handed  from  one  to  another  to  show  that  effigy  of 
Caesar  which  furnished  an  infallible  answer  to  the  next 
cleverly  -  constructed  question  ?  Should  one  pay  tribute 
to  Caesar  or  not  ?  the  most  subtle  inquiry,  calculated  so 
certainly  to  embroil  him  with  one  side  or  another  and 
bring  him  within  the  sway  of  the  secular  heathen  tribunal, 
that  secular  arm  to  which  exasperated  Churchmen  have 
always  been  so  ready  to  appeal.  We  know  what  confusion 
awaited  the  askcrs  of  this  question.  Then  came  the  gay 
and  cultured  scribes,  with  a  problem  at  once  scornful  and 
profane.  Whose  wife  should  that  woman  be  at  the  resur- 
rection who  had  been  married  to  one  brother  after  another 
according  to  a  painful  provision  of  the  Jewish  law  ?  The 
mystical  refinements  of  religion  with  which  we  have  to  deal 
in  the  present  day  are  in  nothing  more  obstinate  than  in 
their  absorption  in  this  question  of  sex,  which  by  some  of 
them  is  forced  on  the  unwilling  listener  with  a  pertinacity 
which  does  its  best  to  make  even  religion  indecent.  The 
Master  quenched  this  flaming  firebrand  with  celestial  calm 
and  that  authority  which  was  "  not  as  the  scribes."  He 
went  farther  even  than  the  immediate  matter,  looking  upon 
these  sceptics,  pretended  teachers  who  soiled  the  spring  from 
which  they  drew,  with  eyes  more  severe  than  his  wont :  and 
set  forth  that  true  doctrine  of  the  resurrection,  that  everlast- 
ing germ  of  spiritual  life,  which  the  Jews  had  never  expressed 
in  their  doctrine,^  and  which  critics  assert  had  never  been 


'  It  may,  however,  lie  remarked  that  the  Jews  had  no  doctrine  properly  so 
called — no  declaration  of  "  I  liclicvc  "  :  but  only  commands  to  Ix;  olicycd,  the 
law — and  prophecies  to  be  hoped  in  ;  no  creed  expressed  in  any  formula,  but  only 
great  inferences  and  things  implied. 


48o  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

revealed  to  them.  What  silence  fell  upon  the  breathless 
assembly  when  these  few  majestic  words  were  said  !  "  The 
God  of  Abraham,  of  Isaac,  and  of  Jacob,"  well-known  title 
of  daily  use,  the  very  claim  of  the  race  to  special  privileges 
and  their  only  standing  ground  in  the  world.  "  He  is  not 
the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living."  What  words  were 
these,  silencing  every  vain  speaker,  filling  with  awe  the  great 
Temple  raised  to  the  honour  of  that  name,  penetrating  to 
the  farthest  verge  of  the  national  history — and  unanswer- 
able, beyond  the  reach  of  argument,  leaving  every  listener 
dumb  ! 

Such  a  reply  did  more  than  silence  the  Sadducecs  ;  it 
gained  the  reluctant  approval  of  the  other  party,  who  had 
never  found  in  all  its  arsenals  such  a  weapon  to  confound 
the  adversary,  and  who  now  approached  him  behind  their 
spokesman,  still  with  their  snare  and  trap  which  they  had 
prepared,  but  with  hearts  one  cannot  but  think  a  little 
touched,  with  a  certain  faltering  in  the  voice  of  the  man 
who  put  the  question,  "  Which  is  the  first  command- 
ment ? "  Nothing  in  all  the  systems  of  the  world  has  ap- 
proached the  broad  and  magnificent  basis  of  all  religion 
which  our  Lord  now  laid  down,  the  essence  of  that  Judaism 
which  is  supposed  to  be  the  most  narrow,  formal,  and  harsh 
of  all  creed.s,  and  of  that  Christianity  which  we  are  told  our 
time  has  outgrown.  When  there  has  been  anything  else 
propounded  fit  to  take  the  place  of  this  everlasting  founda- 
tion, then  we  may  allow  that  our  faith  has  been  outgrown. 
It  was  no  strange  thing  but  familiar  words  which  sounded 
in  that  holy  place  every  day,  words  great  and  splendid 
enough  to  consecrate  of  themselves  any  temple, — "  Thou 
shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all 
thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  with  all  thy  strength  : 
this  is  the  first  commandment.  And  the  second  is  like  unto 
it.  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself.  In  this," 
it  is  added,  "  is  all  the  law  and  the  prophets  :"  in  this,  we  may 
add,  is  heaven  and  earth  at  once,  all  the  privileges  and  all 
the  duties  of  man. 

Is  it,  one  wonders,  sheer  ignorance  of  this  Divine  state- 


CHAP.  Ill      THE  END  OE  THE  JEWISH  D'lSPENSATION  481 


ment  of  faith  that  makes  the  not  ill-intentioned  philosophy 
of  our  days  imagine  the  Service  of  Man  to  be  a  new  revela- 
tion, superseding  the  service  of  God  ? 

Even  in  those  Temple  courts,  with  all  their  factions,  a 
better  inspiration  existed.  "  Well,  Master,  thou  hast  said 
the  truth,"  cries  the  speaker  who  had  put  the  question, 
caught  in  his  own  trap,  if  trap  there  was- — ^a  candid  and 
honest  man  among  those  fierce  disputers.  But  for  this 
voice  of  surprised  approval  the  bands  of  objectors,  the 
critics  and  opposing  doctors,  seem  to  have  been  silenced, 
not  knowing  what  to  say.  And  then  Jesus  in  his  turn 
became  the  questioner.  They  were  dumb  when  he  asked 
why  David  should  call  the  Christ  his  Lord  when  he  was  his 
son — as  when  he  asked  them  by  what  authority  John  had 
baptized.  They  could  not  and  dared  not  reply.  Thus  the 
first  scene  in  which  He  appeared  in  the  Temple  in  the  days 
of  his  childhood  was  repeated  at  the  end  of  his  earthly 
career  :  "  both  hearing  and  asking  questions  " — leaving  his 
adversaries  confounded  from  their  own  mouths,  silenced, 
unable  to  say  a  word  in  reply. 

In  these  points,  so  briefly  told,  filling  one  chapter  only 
in  the  record,  the  fundamental  question  as  to  who  he  was 
and  what  was  his  work,  —  which  was  that  on  which  the 
Jews  professed  themselves  most  anxious  : — ^is  settled  with 
a  fulness  which  they  did  not  ask,  and  in  a  sense  which, 
perhaps — dazzled  and  confused  as  they  were,  by  a  revelation 
which  was  too  much  for  them — their  minds  were  incapable 
of  taking  in.  A  kingdom  which  was  spiritual,  which  had 
nothing  to  do  with  Caesar's  kingdom,  founded  not  upon 
conquest  but  upon  a  vast  all-embracing  love,  the  love  of 
God,  and  of  man  :  which  held  eternal  allegiance,  not  to 
Hades  and  the  memories  of  the  dead,  but  to  that  supreme 
God  who  was  the  God  of  the  living  ;  and  which  was  the 
kingdom  not  of  David  only  or  David's  son,  but  of  the  Lord 
and  Master  of  David — such  were  the  great  final  statements 
by  which  he  explained  himself,  and  placed  the  evidence  of 
things  not  seen  before  their  eyes.  That  they  did  not  under- 
stand them  we  may   well  allow  ;   that  such  knowledge  was 

2  I 


THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY 


too  wonderful  to  touch  their  rigid  minds  and  the  firmly 
fixed  one-idea  of  the  nation  ;  that  in  this  sense  their  eyes 
were  holden  that  they  could  not  see,  and  their  ears  that 
they  could  not  hear.  Yet  they  ought  to  have  known  and 
recognised  what  must  have  flashed  upon  a  thousand  simple 
minds  like  the  sun  in  its  shining,  the  higher  meaning,  the 
true  sense  of  all  their  own  economy.  That  last  startling 
confusing  gleam  of  light,  pointing  out  that  David's  son  was 
also  David's  Lord,  ought  to  have  cleared  up  to  them  the 
whole  situation — seeing  that  the  professed  study  and  occu- 
pation of  their  lives  had  been  in  that  very  Law  and  Prophets 
which  were  threaded  through  from  end  to  end  with  lights 
upon  that  subject,  lights  which  should  have  burst  forth  to 
meet  the  revelation  of  his  presence,  showing  the  consistent 
line  of  indication  and  of  promise.  But  it  did  not  do  so.  That 
they  were  dazzled  and  confused  in  their  intense  discomfiture 
we  may  well  believe,  and  that  accompanying  the  eager  and 
hostile  curiosity  which  possessed  them  there  was  an  under- 
lying determination  to  hold  their  own  place,  not  to  be  con- 
vinced of  anything  which  should  put  them  aside  from  that 
authoritative  position,  or  risk  the  destruction  of  that  superi- 
ority, which  was  their  life  and  being.  Once  more  we  are 
reminded  of  the  case  of  Herod,  who  did  not,  so  far  as  is 
apparent,  entertain  the  least  doubt  of  the  coming  of  the 
Child  of  Bethlehem,  of  what  the  Chaldeans  told  him, 
strengthened  by  what  the  scribes  told  him  ;  and  yet 
deliberately  set  himself  to  destroy  the  hope  of  Israel. 
So,  though  the  Pharisees  were  confounded  in  all  their 
arguments,  though  the  great  constitution  of  the  new 
spiritual  world  which  their  own  had  foreshadowed  was 
placed  before  them,  so  that  had  they  been  faithful  to  their 
own  inspiration  they  must  have  recognised  it,  they  refused 
to  do  so.  They  must  have  turned  away  from  that  last 
question  which  cut  the  ground  from  under  their  feet,  silenced, 
confounded,  even  paralysed  ;  for  not  a  finger  was  lifted 
against  the  bold  speaker,  he  who  had  warned  them  that 
the  kingdom  was  to  be  taken  from  them,  and  the  stone 
which   they  had   rejected   to  fall  upon  them  and  crush  them 


CHAi'.  Ill      THE  END  OF  THE  JEWISH  DISPENSATION  483 

to  powder :  and  who  now  denounced  them  without  disguise, 
"  Woe  unto  you,  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites  ! "  as  they 
stole  away  like  a  defeated  army,  leaving  the  eager  multitude, 
and  the  disciples  always  circling  him  about :  now  triumphant, 
no  doubt,  though  they  too  were  little  less  dazzled  and  con- 
fused than  the  Pharisees,  in  their  Master's  victory  over  his 
enemies. 

Nothing  can  exceed  the  strength  and  force  of  the 
denunciation  that  follows,  poured  forth  in  the  very  strong- 
hold of  their  sway,  and  in  the  ears  of  many  who  no  doubt 
would  make  haste  to  repeat  to  the  ecclesiastical  rulers  of 
Judea  every  word  of  that  stern  anathema.  "  Ye  devour 
widows'  houses,  and  for  a  pretence  make  long  prayers.  Ye 
compass  sea  and  land  to  make  one  proselyte ;  and  when  he  is 
made,  ye  make  him  tenfold  more  the  child  of  hell  than 
yourselves.  Ye  fools  and  blind  !  Ye  generation  of  vipers  !  " 
Never  before  nor  after  were  those  lips  opened  to  utter  the 
language  of  condemnation  (not  damnation  even  here,  as  in 
our  translation,  which  was  made  when  men  did  not  mince 
matters  and  considered  the  eternal  fire  the  most  simple  thing 
in  the  world — but  judgment,  an  answer  before  a  tribunal). 
He  sat  there  in  the  midst  of  their  very  kingdom  and  poured 
forth  divine  indignation  against  the  master  vice,  that  hypocrisy 
and  pretended  holiness  which  brought  virtue  itself  into 
disrepute :  yet  not  one  of  all  the  officials  of  the  Temple 
interposed.  It  was  well  known  that  sentence  had  gone  forth 
against  him  in  the  Sanhedrim,  that  orders  had  been  given  to 
arrest  him  whenever  he  appeared.  Yet  there  he  sat  and 
discoursed,  and  set  forth  the  dreadful  indictment  against  these 
men  who  had  virtually  the  power  of  life  and  death  in  their 
hands.  Awe  seems  to  have  seized  upon  both  masters  and 
servants — the  one  shrank  away  confounded,  baffled  at  every 
turn  ;  the  others  must  have  hung  about  helpless,  not  knowing 
to  whom  to  turn  for  their  last  orders,  afraid  of  the  impassioned 
crowd  that  hung  upon  his  lips — daunted  most  of  all  by  his 
own  aspect,  calm  even  in  his  indignation, — and  more  than  ever 
aware  that  never  man  spake  like  this  man. 

That  he  should  have  been  allowed  to  depart  peacefully 


484  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

out  of  Jerusalem,  and  take  that  grateful  evening  walk  across 
the  gentle  hill  and  through  the  pleasant  fields  to  Bethany, 
where  no  doubt  the  house  of  Martha  was  full  of  anxiety  as 
to  what  had  passed  during  his  absence,  is  as  wonderful  as 
anything  in  the  tale.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  varying 
accounts  of  this  last  week  make  little  division  between  the 
days,  so  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  separate  them  and 
decide  upon  which  day  certain  events  took  place.  Upon  one  of 
the  evenings  after  these  discourses  in  the  Temple — probably, 
we  may  imagine,  on  that  day  which  has  been  above  recorded, 
with  still  the  fire  of  these  last  words  dazzling  in  the  air, 
and  no  man  daring  to  interfere  with  his  leisurely  with- 
drawal, he  seems  again  to  have  surveyed  the  great  buildings 
of  the  house  of  God — perhaps  in  his  divine  courtesy  at  the 
suggestion  of  some  new  disciple  who  was  eager  to  point  out 
an  addition  or  restoration  executed  since  his  last  visit.  That 
his  immediate  followers  did  not  remonstrate  against  this 
lingering  is  probably  another  indication  of  that  excitement 
and  confusion  that  was  in  the  air,  a  bewilderment  of  all 
faculties,  which  prevented  even  those  who  loved  him  most 
from  perceiving  the  risk  of  hanging  about  in  the  midst  of 
danger.  But  he  himself  was  not  hurried,  or  anxious  to 
escape.  He  must  have  paused  and  looked  and  noted  what 
was  pointed  out  to  him,  in  the  great  sadness  of  what  he 
knew  to  be  his  final  effort.  The  day  was  over  of  possibility 
and  hope — and  now  he  could  scarcely  see  those  beautiful  walls 
and  domes  standing  strong  under  the  level  rays  of  the  wester- 
ing sun,  for  pity  of  the  terrible  scene  when  they  should  be 
beaten  down,  so  that  not  one  stone  should  stand  on  another. 
When  he  left  Jerusalem,  and  sat  down  to  rest  upon  the  way, 
which  rounds  the  slope  of  the  Mount  of  Olives,  opposite  the 
Temple,  with  his  eyes  upon  the  white  and  shining  city,  so 
peaceful  outside,  so  full  of  every  unchained  demon  of  rage 
and  blasphemy  within,  his  countenance  was  still  sorrowful 
with  these  thoughts.  The  disciples  gathered  round  him 
eagerly  yet  full  of  awe,  asking  the  explanation  which  he  so 
often  gave  them.  "  When  shall  these  things  be  ?  And  what 
shall  be  the  sign  of  thy  coming  and  of  the  end  of  the  world  ?  " 


CHAP.  Ill      THE  END  OF  THE  JEWISH  DISPENSATION  487 

That  some  dim  perception  of  the  approaching  crisis  of  which 
they  had  been  so  often  warned,  and  of  his  separation  from 
them,  they  knew  not  how,  had  penetrated  their  minds  is 
evident  from  this  question,  as  it  is  also  evident  that  they 
associated  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  with  the  end  of  the 
world. 

There  is  an  extraordinary  pathos  in  the  thought  that  our 
Lord  himself  in  his  renunciation  of  his  divine  greatness 
and  acceptance  of  the  lot  of  mankind,  had  consented  to  the 
limitations  of  the  mortal  state  so  far  as  to  be  himself  unaware 
of  any  distinction  between  these  two  tremendous  events.  On 
this  great  subject  it  is  too  daring  to  speak  :  yet  the  mingling 
of  the  two,  the  promise  that  "this  generation  shall  not  pass  away 
till  all  these  things  be  fulfilled,"  tempered  with  the  statement 
which  is  very  clear  that  "of  that  day  and  hour  knoweth  no 
man,  no,  not  the  angels  of  heaven,  neitJier  the  Son,  but  my 
Father  only,"  seems  to  contain  such  an  indication  ;  as  after- 
wards in  Gcthsemanc  we  have  a  like  but  yet  more  wonderful 
indication  of  this  fact :  when  at  the  great  crisis  of  his  human 
agony  it  seems  for  a  moment  to  have  appeared  possible  to  him 
that  "  this  hour  "  (of  which  in  another  moment  he  said  "  But 
for  this  cause  came  I  to  this  hour  ")  might  by  possibility  pass 
away.  As  he  sat  in  his  exhaustion  after  all  the  contentions 
of  that  day  which  had  kept  his  human  faculties  at  fullest 
strain — and  looked  over  the  valley  at  the  doomed  city  shin- 
ing all  unconscious  of  its  approaching  fate  :  the  thought  of  the 
coming  of  the  heavenly  kingdom  in  the  hearts  and  spirits  of 
men,  and  of  the  final  settlement  of  all  things,  perhaps  afforded 
to  his  soul,  already  overshadowed  by  the  great  cloud  of 
mortal  suffering,  a  welcome  escape  from  the  intolerable 
anguish  of  that  siege  and  destruction  which  every  sight  of 
Jerusalem  brought  more  clearly  before  his  eyes.  But  to 
speculate  upon  a  mystery  so  profound  is  not  appropriate  here. 
To  imagine  that  our  Lord  in  his  intense  humanity  had 
accepted  the  veil  of  imperfect  foresight,  as  he  did  those  other 
limitations  which  compelled  him  to  sleep  for  weariness,  to  be 
faint  for  food,  even  in  some  sort  to  pray  for  an  impossible 
deliverance — is  only  to  myself  a  more  pathetic  and  overwhelm- 


THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY 


ing  proof  of  the  wonderful  sacrifice  which  was  not  accompHshed 
at  Calvary  alone,  but  by  the  sea-shore  in  Galilee,  and  the 
streets  of  Jerusalem,  the  sacrifice  of  living,  far  longer  and 
more  continuous  than  that  of  death. 

Everything  in  the  records  of  that  day  in  the  Temple 
points  it  out  as  the  last.  What  more  was  there  to  be  said  ? 
He  had  left  no  stone  unturned  to  convince,  no  further 
exposition  possible  to  make  his  mission  clear.  Patiently  he 
had  heard  and  replied  to  every  problem  his  enemies  had  set 
before  him,  so  that  none  could  be  in  a:ny  further  doubt  as  to 
what  he  meant.  He  had  cried  once  more  in  the  Temple 
in  the  midst  of  all,  "  I  am  come  a  light  into  ]the  world.  He 
that  believeth  on  me,  believeth  not  on  me  but  on  him  that 
sent  me."  Neither  among  the  Pharisees  nor  among  the 
multitude  could  any  delusion  be  left  concerning  him,  or 
at  least  concerning  the  office  he  claimed.  No  longer  a 
prophet  out  of  Nazareth,  no  longer  the  Son  of  David  alone, 
but  the  Lord  of  David,  the  Light  of  the  world.  It  cannot  be 
maintained  for  a  moment  that  he  had  left  Jerusalem  in  any 
doubt.  He  was  the  Son  of  God,  the  promised  Deliverer — or 
else  his  blasphemy  was  proved  before  all  men.  One  thing 
or  the  other  ;   God  or  an  impostor  ;  there  is  no  midway. 

And  then  it  would  seem  there  was  a  pause  :  making 
their  way  .softly  along  the  side  of  the  hill,  stopping  to  rest, 
watching  the  sun  go  down  and  all  the  meltings  of  the 
evening  light  sink  over  Jerusalem,  continuing,  as  strength 
permitted,  their  way  among  the  gnarled  olives  and  the 
waving  corn,  the  little  band  would  reach  the  village  where 
the  lamps  were  being  lighted  and  the  table  spread  for  the 
evening  meal.  Some  commentators  imagine  that  on  this 
evening  was  the  great  supper  at  which  Mary  anointed  her 
Lord  for  his  burial,  and  Judas,  exasperated,  set  out  to 
contrive  with  his  Master's  enemies  how  to  surprise  him 
when  apart  from  the  crowd.  But  that  does  not  seem  to 
be  justified  by  the  narrative  of  St.  John.  And  for  a  day 
or  two  after  silence  falls  upon  the  wonderful  scene.  St. 
Matthew  records  some  of  the  most .  impressive  of  the 
parable.^,  that  of  the  ten  virgins,  that  of  the  final  judgment. 


CHAP.  Ill      7'HE  END  OF  THE  JEWISH  DISPENSATION  489 

which  may  well  have  been  told  to  the  village  folk  of 
Eethany,  or  the  stragglers  from  Jerusalem  who  came  out, 
as  after  a  wonder,  to  hear  what  he  would  say :  and  to 
whom  the  description  of  those  who  said  "  Lord,  Lord,"  but 
left  all  deeds  of  goodness  unaccomplished,  might  well  apply. 
But  the  courts  of  the  Temple  knew  him  no  more. 

It  is  strange  to  think  what  was  going  on  there.  "  Many 
of  the  chief  rulers  believed  on  him,"  and  these  courts  must 
again  have  echoed  with  questions — Where  was  he  ?  Was  he 
coming  again  ?  The  Pharisees  began  again  to  encourage 
and  stimulate  each  other  to  action,  "  Perceive  ye  not  how 
ye  prevail  nothing  ?  behold,  the  world  is  gone  after  him." 
They  had  not  dared  for  fear  of  the  multitude  to  lay  a  hand 
upon  him  during  that  great  day  :  but  now  in  his  absence 
it  was  more  possible  to  bestir  themselves.  How  did  they 
work  in  the  meantime  upon  the  spirit  of  the  mob  to  change 
that  so  strangely  ?  or  was  it  the  mere  sight  of  him  insulted 
and  dishonoured  that  did  this,  calling  forth  one  of  those 
extraordinary  revolutions  of  popular  sentiment  which  so 
often  occur  in  human  experience  ?  No  doubt  every  scribe, 
every  teacher  who  held  by  the  priests  and  Pharisees,  was 
bu.sy  for  these  two  silent  days  in  the  endeavour  to  turn  that 
popular  tide.  The  chief  argument  with  those  who  were 
capable  of  argument  would  probably  be  the  danger  to  all 
their  characteristic  institutions,  the  risk  that  the  Romans 
would  take  away  their  place  and  nation,  the  peril  of  the 
Temple  which  had  been  threatened  with  destruction. 
Jerusalem  was  their  pride  and  glory,  and  this  Nazarene 
had  spoken  of  its  ruin  :  their  Sabbaths  and  feasts  were 
their  distinction  among  the  nations,  and  he  had  broken 
one,  and  in  the  spirit  of  his  teaching  threatened  to 
supersede  the  others.  Could  such  things  be  ?  Would  they 
allow  them.selves  to  be  scattered  among  the  common  world 
of  men,  deprived  of  their  sacred  character  as  the  people 
of  God,  they,  the  children  of  Abraham  ?  The  rumour  of 
such  arguments  might  probably  reach  him  in  the  quiet  of 
the  country  in  which  he  was,  bringing  ever  nearer  the 
inevitable  catastrophe. 


490  THE  FINAL  TRAGEDY  fart  iv 

But  that  period  of  holy  calm  and  intercourse,  or  else 
the  immunity  which  he  had  enjoyed  from  all  persecution 
in  the  recent  days  spent  in  the  Temple,  had  so  strengthened 
the  disciples  that  none  of  the  desperate  devotion  which 
made  Thomas  say,  on  an  earlier  occasion,  "  Let  us  go, 
that  we  may  die  with  him,"  is  apparent  in  their  de- 
meanour now.  The  two  who  were,  no  doubt,  the  usual 
providers  went  into  the  city  by  his  command  to  pre- 
pare for  their  Master,  the  night  before  the  Passover, 
probably  that  all  might  be  on  the  spot  and  ready  to  fulfil 
all  righteousness  on  the  next  day — one  of  them,  we  must 
believe,  being  the  guilty  Judas  with  his  terrible  secret  in  his 
heart,  attentive  to  note  all  arrangements,  that  he  might 
betray  the  most  favourable  spot  for  his  Master's  arrest  to 
those  who  had  purchased  his  services.  Our  Lord  directs 
them  to  the  place  as  if  it  were  one  already  selected  by 
himself  Tradition,  which,  however,  I  fear  is  of  little 
authority,  fixes  "  the  large  upper  room "  as  having  been 
situated  in  the  little  group  of  buildings  which  surround 
what  is  called  the  tomb  of  David,  and  which  lie  on  the 
southern  side  of  Jerusalem,  a  little  way  outside  the  town. 
This  may  or  may  not  have  been  ;  one  point,  however,  in 
its  favour  is  that  the  little  band  would  be  able  to  go  there 
descending  from  the  hillside  road  straight  down  into  the 
valley  of  Hinnom,  and  by  the  heights  and  hollows  outside 
the  wall  without  attracting  observation.^ 

Into  the  narrative  of  that  holy  feast  it  would  be  a 
presumption  to  enter.  It  can  scarcely  have  been  but  with 
hearts  heavy  with  apprehension,  though  they  knew  not  what 
they  feared,  that  the  disciples  followed  their  Lord,  skirting 
the   walls,   within    which   Jerusalem  was,   full  of  sound   and 

1  The  pilgrim  of  the  present  day  will  find  at  the  same  period  of  the  year 
the  lower  part  of  this  building  full  of  picturesque  wild  parties  of  Moslem  visitors 
each  in  their  corner,  come  up  like  tlie  Jews  of  old  "to  keep  the  feast,"  and 
affording,  no  doubt,  a  very  sufficient  picture  and  reflection  of  the  Jewish  families 
in  the  course  of  their  annual  pilgrimage.  The  Moslem  feast  is  a  very  artificial 
one,  a  pilgrimage  to  the  tomb  of  Moses,  intended,  it  is  believed,  to  serve  the 
useful  purpose  of  bringing  a  large  number  of  Arabs  into  the  holy  city  to  counter- 
balance and  hold  in  check  at  once  the  Christians  and  the  Jews,  but  chiefly  the 
former,  who  throng  at  Easter  to  the  sacred  place. 


CHAP.  Ill      THE  END  OF  THE  JEWISH  DISPENSATION  49 1 


movement  and  the  murmur  of  the  multitude.  There  is 
no  record  of  any  instructive  conversation,  of  those  discourses 
which  had  beguiled  the  way  on  many  a  previous  occasion, 
as  they  took  this  last  long  walk  together.  It  would  seem 
that  the  twelve  alone  accompanied  their  Master,  the  women 
and  other  disciples  who  generally  followed  him  having 
perhaps  joined  their  own  families  for  the  feast,  perhaps 
remained  anxious  at  Bethany,  or  gone  up  among  the  crowd 
to  the  Temple  courts  to  hear  what  was  being  said,  and  if 
any  steps  were  to  be  taken  against  him.  We  all  know  the 
story  of  that  wonderful  evening  meal,  which  the  Lord  had 
so  strongly  desired  to  cat  with  his  disciples  before  he 
suffered,  and  the  sigh  with  which  he  said,  having  for  the 
last  time  shared  the  supper,  the  common  human  meal,  with 
all  its  associations  of  fellowship  and  mutual  trustfulness 
with  the  chosen  twelve,  that  ''  one  of  you  shall  betray  me." 
Twelve  at  table,  and,  no  doubt,  a  murmur  of  talk  among 
themselves,  it  is  not  to  be  believed  that  Judas  heard  those 
words.  It  would  be  too  great  a  wonder  to  believe  that  he 
could  have  heard  them,  and  understood  that  his  object  was 
known,  and  yet  gone  out  calmly,  and  been  allowed  by  the 
rest  to  go  out  to  accomplish  it.  John,  leaning  upon  our 
Lord's  breast,  nearest  to  him  at  table,  asked  at  the  eager 
request  of  Peter  who  it  was  ;  and  there  seems  to  have  arisen  a 
pained  inquiry  among  the  rest,  each  one  echoing  his  neighbour, 
scarcely  understanding  perhaps  what  the  question  meant,  "  Is 
it  I  ?  "  Perhaps  it  was  generally  supposed  among  the  party 
to  be  .some  commission  to  be  executed,  or  at  least  some- 
thing vague  in  the  future  like  Peter's  after-burst  of  a.ssurance, 
that  in  no  circumstances  could  he  deny  his  Lord  ;  and  the 
piece  of  bread  which  was  given  to  the  traitor  would  be 
but  a  sign  of  the  Master's  usual  tender  courtesy  to  the 
one  among  them  who  had  to  leave  the  table  on  his 
administrative  business  before  the  others.  That  they 
could  have  divined  what  he  was  to  do  quickly  is  impo.ssible, 
else  hasty  Peter  would  certainly  have  stopped  his  goings 
for  ever,  before  even  the  Lord  could  interfere. 

There  is  a  haze  over  them  all  as  of  the  very  dazzle  and 


492  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  fart  iv 

confusion  of  a  great  crisis  uncomprehcndcd,  during  the  whole 
of  that  extraordinary  scene.  Its  wonderful  preface  and 
accessories  : — the  washing  of  the  feet — strange  and  touching 
lesson  in  the  midst  of  those  contentions  who  should  be 
greatest  that  seem  to  have  continued  up  to  this  very 
climax — and  the  discourses  that  follow  :  are  all  full  of  this 
strained  and  troubled  tension  of  human  faculty,  labouring  at 
its  utmost  after  the  Divine,  and  breaking  into  an  almost 
childishness  of  remark  and  question  in  its  inability  to  catch 
the  thread  of  meaning.  While  he  speaks,  more  certainly  now 
than  ever  before,  "  as  never  man  spake  " — they  follow  him 
like  blind  men  at  a  distance,  murmuring  strange  questions 
confusedly  in  the  midst  of  his  divine  words:  "  Lord,  we  know 
not  whither  thou  goest  ;  and  how  can  we  know  the  way  ?  " 
"  Lord,  shew  us  the  Father,  and  it  sufficeth  us."  "  Lord,  how 
is  it  that  thou  wilt  manifest  thyself  unto  us,  and  not  unto  the 
world  ?  "  "  What  is  this  that  he  saith  unto  us,  A  little  while  ? 
We  cannot  tell  what  he  saith."  These  all  seem  like  the 
expressions  of  listeners,  addressed  as  it  were  in  an  unknown 
tongue,  straining  every  power  to  follow,  feeling  themselves 
swept  into  a  great  current  which  they  can  neither  stem  nor 
understand,  and  in  the  flood  of  which  they  catch  at  anything 
that  may  arrest  the  tide  for  a  moment,  or  help  them  to 
standing  ground.  Nor  is  the  utterance  of  their  dazed  satis- 
faction at  the  end  less  remarkable,  "  Lo,  now  speakest  thou 
plainly,  and  speakest  no  proverb.  Now  are  we  sure  that 
thou  knowest  all  things,  and  needest  not  that  any  man 
should  ask  thee  :  by  this  we  believe  that  thou  camest  forth 
from  God."  Strange  words  of  weakness,  utterly  overpowered 
by  the  weight  of  a  glory  which  was  too  much  for  them  ! 
There  was  nothing  they  had  not  heard  before  in  the  words 
which  preceded  this  confession — and  the  confession  is  like 
the  questions,  almost  inane  in  the  pressure  and  strain  of 
feeling. 

But  as  they  left  the  room  where  they  had  supped, 
where  so  much  that  was  altogether  strange  and  incompre- 
hensible on  any  theory  or  wit  of  theirs  had  taken  place — 
and  went  on  with  him  again  over  the  dark  road  outside  the 


CHAP.  Ill      THE  END  OF  THE  JEWISH  DISPENSATION  493 

walls,  Jerusalem  on  one  hand  flaring  to  the  sky  with  all  her 
lights  and  torches,  her  watchmen  making  their  round  upon 
the  ramparts,  the  deep  valley  lying  still  below  :  and  every 
man  in  the  little  throng  crowding  upon  his  neighbour  to  hear 
the  continuation  of  those  words  that  had  been  begun  as  they 
sat  about  the  table — their  troubled  questions  came  to  a  close, 
and  they  listened  in  silence.  Perhaps  they  paused  to  rest 
when  the  valley  of  Kedron  was  reached,  and  there  heard  the 
last  part  of  what  He  had  to  say  to  them,  silent  still  in  their 
strange  rapture  and  wonder,  and  sense  of  something  approach- 
ing which  no  one  could  divine.  Was  it  there  in  the  stillness 
of  the  silent  valley,  by  the  side  of  the  little  rivulet  of  water 
to  which  Kedron  had  fallen  after  the  rains  were  over,  with 
the  Paschal  moon  clouded  in  the  sky,  and  everything  hushed 
and  sanctified  in  the  coolness  of  the  night,  that  they  listened 
with  heads  bowed  and  hearts  full  of  awe  and  wonder,  to  the 
ineffable  majestic  words  of  that  prayer,  wonderful  communing 
of  God  with  God,  which  the  silenced  atmosphere  of  earth  and 
the  limited  mortal  horizon  could  scarce  contain  ? — "  Father,  I 
will " — words  never  spoken  in  earthly  hearing  before,  and  so 
strangely  contrasting  with  those  which  were  soon  to  be  forced 
to  his  human  lips  by  the  extremity  of  an  anguish  such  as 
no  man  had  ever  borne. 

The  Temple  wall  rises  sheer  from  that  grassy  slope,  the 
brook  tinkles  deep  below,  the  old  olive-trees  wave  their 
silvery  leaves  in  the  shining  of  the  moon.  At  that  time  the 
light  would  fall  over  the  high  cloister,  and  its  arches,  under 
which  he  had  walked  and  talked  surrounded  by  a  wondering 
crowd,  and  the  heaped-up  stages  of  the  Temple  buildings,  tier 
upon  tier.  The  pilgrim  now  feels  often  a  thrill  of  pain  at 
the  common  uses  of  that  garden  of  Gethsemane,  fenced  and 
divided  with  its  homely  growth  of  fruits  and  flowers  :  but, 
perhaps,  unduly — for  then  too  it  must  have  had  its  simple 
enclosure  ensuring  privacy,  and  a  quiet  place  of  rest  under 
the  olives  to  these  wanderers  and  .strangers.  He  left  the 
band  all  overwhelmed  with  what  they  had  heard,  perhaps  to 
seek  for  themselves  resting  places  for  the  night,  perhaps  to 
continue  their  way  to  where  they  were  sure  of  lodging  and 


494 


THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY 


welcome  at  Bethany:  and  went  himself  with  the  three  of 
his  closest  attendants  who  never  left  him,  across  the  brook, 
to  the  favourite  garden,  which,  no  doubt,  belonged  to  some 
disciple  and  was  always  open  to  him.  They  had  probably 
often  slept  there  on  the  dry  grass  beneath  the  trees,  covered 
with  a  cloak,  as  is  still  so  common  in  the  East :  and  Peter 
and  the  two  brethren  prepared  to  lie  down,  weary  with  much 


ANCIENT    OLlVE-lKtii    IN    THE    GAKDEN    OK    GETllSEMANE 


emotion,  and  though  not  knowing  what  to-morrow  might 
bring  forth,  thinking  of  nothing  but  quiet  for  the  night. 
How  it  was  that  after  the  divine  calm  of  that  evening  our 
Lord's  humanity  asserted  itself  in  one  last  hour  of  weakness, 
who  can  venture  to  say  ?  Flesh  and  blood  were  worn  out, 
and  he  who  had  just  spoken  with  the  voice  of  God,  was  still 
only,  in  the  pathos  of  mortal  conditions,  a  man.  He  also 
had  to  pay  the  penalty  of  the  flesh  ("  for  this  cause  came  I 
to  this  hour "),  and  bore  it  unsupported,  as  none  of  his 
martyrs  have  done.      He  withdrew  a  little  from  these  troubled 


CHAP.  Ill      THE  END  OF  THE  JEWISH  DISPENSATION  495 

but  exhausted  friends,  who  could  only  sleep  "  for  sorrow," 
limited  human  beings  all  confused  and  worn  out :  and  fell 
for  a  moment  into  that  anguish  unspeakable  which  sympathy 
could  not  share,  nor  love  help  ;  "  Father,  if  it  be  possible  :  all 
things  are  possible  unto  thee."  He  had  bidden  the  disciples 
when  he  left  them  to  pray  that  they  should  not  enter  into 
temptation  :  but  he  himself  had  all  the  brunt  of  the  most 
terrible  of  temptations  to  bear.  It  was  not  enough  that  he 
should  soar  above  the  human  as  when  he  said,  "  Father,  I 
will  "  :  the  strain,  the  stress,  the  conflict,  must  be  his  as  it 
was  theirs  of  whom  he  was  the  representative.  "  Sore 
amazed  and  very  heavy " — restless,  going  and  coming  to 
see,  perhaps,  if  any  cared,  if  there  was  one  to  stand  by  him  : 
and  there  was  none  :  not  even  of  those  who  loved  him  most, 
not  for  one  hour.  "  Simon,  sleepest  thou  ?  "  Peter  was  the 
strongest,  the  most  eager  to  go  with  him  through  every- 
thing— and  yet  he  could  not  watch  one  hour.  There  was 
never  a  picture  so  terrible,  so  wonderful,  so  natural — the 
going  back  again  and  again,  the  same  words  almost  as  if  in 
the  depths  of  his  anguish  the  human  weakness  of  re- 
petition was  all  that  he  was  capable  of:  very  man,  bearing 
upon  him  the  burden  of  the  conditions  of  that  race  from 
which  he  would  not  liberate  himself  till  the  last. 

The  coming  of  the  darkling  procession  among  the  trees, 
in  the  depths  of  the  valley  :  the  sudden  flare  of  a  torch  or 
two  :  the  momentary  tumult  when  Peter,  dazed,  starting  from 
his  sleep,  snatched  at  the  sword  which  in  piteous  uncom- 
prehension  he  had  brought  with  him  from  the  chamber  of 
the  supper,  and  struck  a  hasty  blow  with  it  in  the  darkness 
and  dazzle  of  confusing  light :  the  one  calm  presence 
dominating  all,  stopping  that  clamour  with  a  word,  healing 
with  a  touch  the  wound  which  was  so  needless :  the 
circle  of  the  dark  multitude  round,  confu.sed  in  the 
moonlight  ;  the  Temple  police  half  exultant,  half  afraid, 
surrounding  their  prisoner  with  their  staves :  we  all  know 
these  incidents  too  well  to  require  that  they  should  be  re- 
called to  us.  The  few  terrified  disciples,  tho.sc  three  whom 
he   had   taken   with    him,  and   who    do   not   seem   to   have 


496  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

been  molested,  followed  in  the  distance,  still  with  their 
dazed  faculties  unable  to  understand,  as  the  procession 
made  its  way  with  as  little  sound  no  doubt  as  possible, 
perhaps  by  the  sheep -gate  at  the  northern  end  of  the 
Temple  enclosure,  the  gate  by  which  the  sacrifices  were 
taken  in,  to  the  house  of  the  high  priest.  Nor  do  we 
venture  to  tell  again  the  story  of  that  awful  night,  when 
with  those  rude  companions  in  the  guardroom,  perhaps 
suffered  to  lie  down  in  a  corner  upon  the  pavement,  perhaps 
standing  patient,  like  the  lamb  to  the  slaughter.  He  waited 
the  pleasure  of  his  captors,  and  endured  the  questioning, 
first  of  the  informal  gathering  of  the  priests  and  elders  who 
were  assembled  to  hear  what  had  happened,  and  next — when 
the  slow  hours  wore  round,  and  the  pale  dawn  stole  upon 
the  tumult  of  that  chamber,  dispersing  the  shadows  of 
the  sleepless  night — the  more  formal  examination  before  the 
Sanhedrim,  hastily  gathered  in  defiance  of  all  law  and 
justice  to  sentence  him  before  he  could  be  delivered  from 
their  hands.  It  would  seem  that  even  then  in  the  midnight 
watch  before  any  formal  condemnation  was  pronounced,  he 
was  exposed  to  the  rude  jests  and  insults  of  the  tipstaffs 
and  officers,  whose  terror  perhaps  of  what  themselves  had 
done,  after  the  previous  awe  of  his  presence  which  had  kept 
them  back,  found  expression  in  a  sort  of  desperate  ferocity 
and  mockery,  a  thing  not  unknown  in  the  annals  of  super- 
stitious panic.  He  had  a  harder  burden  still  to  bear,  as  he 
saw  the  furtive  and  terrified  look  of  his  beloved  John 
appearing  and  disappearing  at  the  open  door,  and  Peter, 
ever  bold  yet  not  bold  enough,  penetrating,  chill  with 
misery,  to  the  brazier,  holding  out  shaking  hands  to  the 
fire,  shrinking  back  into  himself  when  a  suspicious  doorkeeper 
pushed  him  aside  with  a  hasty  accusation  "  Thou  also  wert 
with  him  " — "  I  know  not  the  man  !  " 

How  can  we  explain  this  defection,  this  astonishing 
failure  of  the  heart?  Even  when  he  heard  the  cock  crow, 
and  conviction  came  upon  Peter  :  when  the^  Lord  from  the 
other  side  of  the  hall  turned  his  head  and  looked  at  him, — 
was   it  with   a  smile   at    the   speedy    realisation   of  his   own 


FOUNTAIN  NEAR  THE  GATE  OF  THK  CHAIN 


2  K 


CHAP.  Ill      THE  END  OF  THE  JEWISH  DISPENSATION  499 

warning?  with  nothing  but  the  reproach  of  love  we  may 
be  sure  : — the  rough  Galilean  good  for  nothing  but  to  die 
at  his  feet,  we  might  suppose,  not  surely  to  revolutionise  a 
world — did  not  break  through  the  circle  of  staves  and  spears 
and  fling  himself  on  the  ground  before  his  Master,  to  share 
whatever  might  befall  him,  as  many  a  lesser  man  has  done  : 
— but  went  out  into  that  terrible  dawn,  in  the  chill  opening 
of  that  awful  day,  weeping,  struggling  with  himself,  rather 
in  the  collapse  of  despair  than  with  any  burst  of  devotion. 
To  turn  his  back  upon  it,  to  try  to  ignore  it,  to  cry  aloud 
to  God,  negligent  and  unheeding,  for  those  ten  legions  of 
angels  who  could  change  everything  in  a  moment,  but 
whom  the  Master  would  not  ask  for :  was  this  all  there 
remained  to  do  ?  Did  the  city  sleep  unthinking,  when 
Peter  burst  forth  into  its  streets,  or  was  it  waking  early  to 
the  preparation  for  the  Passover,  and  beginning  to  hear  by 
flying  rumours,  always  awake  like  care  before  the  race  of 
mankind — that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  had  been  seized,  that  he 
was  before  the  judges,  and  that  no  one  could  tell  what 
wonderful  thing  might  happen  that  day  ? 

The  town  was  full  of  strangers  and  pilgrims,  lying  down  to 
snatch  their  night's  rest  in  every  corner,  in  every  khan  and 
guest-chamber,  and  stirring  early  because  of  the  discomfort 
and  crowding  of  their  accommodation  as  well  as  because  of 
the  solemnity  of  the  day.  And  this  new  excitement  thrown 
into  it  must  have  thrilled  the  restless  city  from  end  to  end. 
The  prisoner  before  the  Sanhedrim,  the  charge  of  blasphemy, 
the  eager  search  of  the  inquisitors  for  evidence :  every 
incident  would  soon  be  known  and  followed  with  an  excite- 
ment impossible  to  describe.  Many  in  those  streets  into 
which  the  multitude  would  surge,  eager  for  another  and 
another  scrap  of  news,  would  no  doubt  look  for  those  ten 
legions  of  angels,  for  some  tremendous  sign  to  proclaim  Him 
and  his  office,  so  that  no  man  should  be  able  to  gainsay  : 
they  would  stand  breathless  in  suspense,  hoping  or  fearing 
every  moment  to  sec  the  heavens  open  and  the  Son  of 
man  vindicated.  In  all  likelihood  the  mob  that  rushed  to 
Pilate's   palace  when   it  was   known   that  the   prisoner   was 


SOO  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

taken  there  would  ■  represent  but  a  small  portion  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  thronged  and  astonished  city.  The 
roughs,  the  wretched  fellows  who  are  ever  ripe  for  mischief, 
comrades  and  friends  of  Barabbas,  offscourings  of  the 
population,  would  be  those  who  pressed  closest  and  shouted 
loudest  in  that  ferocious  throng.  The  better  classes,  people 
of  a  milder  kind,  the  pious  and  the  humble,  those  who  knew 
the  law  and  studied  the  prophets  without  being  prejudiced 
Pharisees,  and  the  vast  crowd  of  strangers  who  were  over- 
awed by  the  legal  rulers  of  their  people  and  dared  not 
interfere — must  have  been  paralysed  by  the  suddenness  of 
the  catastrophe,  and  perhaps  could  not  believe  in  the 
possibility  of  such  a  lawless  and  instant  conclusion.  I  do 
not  venture  to  follow  the  Lord  as  He  stood  before  judge 
after  judge,  calm,  neither  resenting  nor  replying  to  the 
insults  addressed  to  him,  explaining  nothing.  All  his 
explanations  had  been  made  before,  and  the  high  priests 
knew  it  well  ;  they  had  but  to  produce  any  of  the  thousands 
who  had  listened  to  him  in  the  Temple  to  prove  their 
charge  of  blasphemy.  Undoubtedly  every  word  he  said 
was  blasphemy — unless  it  was  true. 

But  Jerusalem  all  surging  about  that  terrible  scene  is 
more  within  the  range  of  the  modern  writer.  I  have  little 
doubt  that  the  many-coloured  crowd  which  throngs  every 
street  at  the  present  day — when  the  little  population  of  the 
city  is  swamped  in  the  multitude  of  pilgrims,  Christians  to 
keep  the  Easter  feast,  Jews  to  keep  the  Passover,  jealous 
Moslems  to  keep  the  peace,  and  make  their  own  ficti- 
tious celebration  at  the  grave  of  Moses  —  resembles  much 
more,  perhaps,  than  any  other  modern  crowd  resembles  one 
of  two  thousand  years  ago,  the  influx  into  Jerusalem  at  that 
great  and  memorable  Passover.  Going  along  the  line 
of  street  which  is  known  now  as  the  Via  Dolorosa,  on  the 
Good  Friday  of  1890,  it  was  impossible  not  to  feel  that  just 
so  must  the  surging  masses  have  closed  upon  that  fatal 
procession,  the  soldiers  clearing  the  way,  the  wondering 
spectators  gazing  over  each  others'  shoulders,  pressing  upon 
the    sufferer,   as    he    made  his    way  up    the  toilsome    steep, 


THB   VIA    UOLOKO.SA 


CHAP.  Ill      THE  END  OF  THE  JEWISH  DISPENSATION  503 

his  bodily  frame  worn  with  the  night's  vigil,  the  exhaustion 
of  the  garden  and  all  the  farewell  scenes,  neutralised  by  no 
hour  of  rest,  no  moment  of  quiet :  while  every  new  street 
and  lane  poured  forth  its  spectators  to  gaze  at  him,  and 
the  hoarse  shouts  of  the  multitude  rang  in  his  ears,  and  the 
gibes  of  the  mocking  Romans  and  their  scornful  laughter  at 
the  Jew  criminal  and  his  Jew  persecutors  alike,  rose  through 
the  tumult.  Not  that  tears  were  wanting  even  then.  "A  great 
company  of  people  and  of  women  which  also  bewailed  and 
lamented  him."  Not  all  were  joined  in  that  hoarse  shout 
of  "  Crucify  him  ! "  The  mocking  and  the  laughter  and 
the  cruel  cries  were  broken  by  that  wail  of  which  alone  he 
took  any  notice.  And  so  the  dreadful  procession  toiled  by. 
Steep  and  rough  as  those  streets  are  now,  they  must  have 
been  still  more  steep  with  their  pavement  of  great  stones, 
and  rough  steps  and  frequent  breaks,  nineteen  hundred  years 
ago.  In  the  heat  of  the  midday,  amid  the  pressure  of  the 
crowd,  carrying  that  heavy  weight  under  which  a  weary 
frame  exhausted  by  sleepless  nights  and  laborious  days 
wavered  and  fell  :  with  all  that  tumult  sweeping  round  and 
the  anguish  at  the  end  which  was  more  than  martyrdom  : 
our  Lord  made  his  final  passage  through  those  streets  of 
Jerusalem,  in  which  he  had  done  no  violence  neither  had 
deceit  been  found  in  his  mouth  :  in  which  he  had  put 
forth  his  hand  so  often  to  heal  and  to  comfort  and  to  bless. 

It  is  no  easy  task  in  the  dark  splendour  of  the  Church 
of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  :  in  those  dim  places — now  high  in  a 
lofty  chapel,  now  low  down  in  a  mysterious  crypt — to  realise 
the  mount  that  was  called  Golgotha,  the  new  grave  which 
was  in  the  garden  close  by,  in  which  Joseph  of  Arimathea 
laid  the  body  of  the  Lord.  And  there  are  many  doubts 
and  questions  among  the  learned  whether  this  spot,  though 
hallowed  by  the  faith  of  centuries,  is  really  the  place  of  the 
crucifixion  and  entombment.  There  is  a  little  mound  to 
the  north  outside  the  Damascus  gate  upon  which  one  of  the 
late  explorers,  Major  Conder,  has  fixed  the  attention  of 
many,  and  which,  no  doubt,  affords  an  aid  to  the  imagina- 
tion  in   realising  that  dread  and  wonderful  scene  which  no 


504  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

combination  of  stately  building  can  afford.  It  is  the  place 
where  Stephen  was  stoned,  where  Jewish  executions,  when  the 
Jews  had  the  power  of  life  and  death,  certainly  took  place;  and 
it  is  evidently  to  the  sight  of  all,  a  place  of  a  skull,  the  hillock- 
being  marked  with  cavities  and  lines  which  recall  in  an  extra- 
ordinary manner  that  formation.  There  the  cross  might 
have  stood  out  against  the  sky,  against  the  sweep  of  undulat- 
ing country  and  low  hills  towards  the  north,  so  that  all  the 
world  might  see  ;  there  the  crowds  might  have  streamed, 
covering  every  slope,  standing  "afar  off"  yet  seeing  every 
particular  of  the  terrible  tragedy,  the  pierced  side,  the  offered 
sponge  :  there  the  great  darkness  that  quenched  both  sun 
and  day  would  come  over  a  vast  horizon  as  if  the  whole 
world  was  filled  by  it :  and  there  would  be  room  for  all 
the  passers-by  to  pause  and  gaze,  and  for  priests  and  fierce 
Pharisees  to  stand  around  and  utter  that  wonderful  confes- 
sion, more  profound  than  Peter's,  more  all-expressive  in  its 
enmity  than  the  warmest  utterance  of  enthusiasm  or  faith, 
the  very  warrant  and  seal  of  earth  put  to  the  act  of  salva- 
tion :  "  He  saved  others  ;  himself  he  cannot  save " :  un- 
conscious testimony  never  to  be  gainsaid  !  the  witness, 
through  all  the  ages,  of  hate  to  love. 

And  low  in  the  side  of  the  hill  is  a  tomb,^  cut  in  the 
rock  like  all  the  tombs  of  Judca  :  not  now  a  new  grave — 
centuries  old,  dark  with  age  and  the  filling  up  of  the  soil,  yet 
still  distinct,  with  its  shelf,  its  couch  of  stone,  the  place  made 
for  the  last  relics  of  mortality  yet  never  finished,  one  rocky 
bed  and  one  alone,  having  been  occupied  : — "  in  a  garden  " 
wild  with  uncultivated  herbage, yet  not  altogether  without  trace 
of  its  ancient  use.  Was  this  Joseph's  tomb,  the  place  where 
the  w^atch  was  set,  to  which  the  women  came  in  the  morning, 
where  the  angels  sat,  and  the  sun  of  the  resurrection  shone  ? 
This  will  probably  never  be  certainly  known  until  we  meet  in 
another  state  the  witnesses  of  that  event,  and  trace  with  them 
every  hallowed  spot,  if  such  an  indulgence  of  human  feeling 

1  The  description  and  model  of  this  tomb,  so  extraordinarily  carrying  out  all 
that  the  tomb  of  our  Lord  must  have  been,  and  realising  with  wonderful  minute- 
ness the  narrative  of  St.  John,  has  been  published  from  special  explorations  by 
the  Rev.  Haskett  Smith  in  a  recent  publication. 


CHAP.  Ill      THE  END  OF  THE  JEWISH  DISPENSATION  505 

may  be  dreamed  of.  But  the  thought  that  it  may  have  been 
so  is  one  to  make  the  heart  swell,  and  the  tears  rise,  as  the 
pilgrim  stands  alone  in  the  silence  outside  the  city,  disturbed 
by  no  clamour  of  contending  creeds,  with  only  heaven  over 
him,  no  scent  of  incense  or  glare  of  lights,  but  the  fragrance 
of  growing  grass,  and  the  sight  of  the  sun.  There  is  no 
room  for  human  memories  in  that  spot  where  the  greatest 
of  earthly  events  took  place  :  yet  the  strained  human  soul 
moved  to  its  depths  may  be  permitted  to  turn  aside  with  a 
pang  of  gladness,  to  think  that  this  grave  was  discovered  in 
the  bowels  of  the  earth  with  all  its  solemn  possibilities,  by 
General  Gordon,  a  tender  reward  and  grace  from  heaven, 
almost  a  sign  of  intimate  sacred  friendship  and  favour,  to 
that  true  servant,  and  brother  and  follower  of  the  Lord. 

We  will  not  attempt  to  dwell  upon  a  conclusion  so 
sacred.  Almost  we  think  that  the  final  scene  of  that 
wonderful  life,  in  the  simplicity  and  awe  of  its  natural 
records,  should  hold  a  place  a  little  apart,  to  be  read 
not  every  day  but  with  special  preparation,  at  special 
times :  as  indeed  the  instinct  of  Christian  reverence  has 
tacitly  ruled  it  should  be.  The  history  of  earth  holds  no 
other  record  that  approaches  it.  It  has  been  discoursed 
upon  by  thousands  of  voices,  few  of  them  competent  to  the 
subject,  yet  never  lost  its  overwhelming  interest,  its  awe  and 
wonder.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  attempt  to  retrace  that 
amazing  and  unparalleled  passage  in  the  great  story  of  the 
universe.  After  nineteen  hundred  years,  during  which  the 
eyes  of  the  race,  whether  in  reverence  or  in  blasphemy,  have 
been  fixed  upon  it,  no  one  has  fathomed  its  full  significance 
or  learned  all  its  mysteries.  "  Which  things  the  angels 
desire  to  look  into."  There  will  be  time  to  understand  it, 
to  know  something  of  the  breadth  of  its  meaning,  the  divine- 
ness  of  the  sacrifice,  the  full  consecration  of  its  human  part,  of 
death  captive  and  life  triumphant,  in  those  ages  when  we,  too. 
shall  have  passed  through  the  portals  of  the  common  grave. 

When  that  great  act  was  accomplished,  the  story  of 
Jerusalem,  the  chosen  city,  came  to  an  end.      Through  all 


So6  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  I'Ain  iv 

the  vicissitudes  of  mortal  life  it  had  survived,  with  tenacity 
and  obstinate  persistence,  when  cities  much  greater  mouldered 
into  dust.  Besieged,  conquered,  burned,  emptied  of  its  popu- 
lation, trodden  into  dust,  it  had  risen  again  time  after  time, 
its  walls  and  its  shrines  ever  renewed,  its  unchangeable  tradi- 
tions carried  on.  Internal  dissensions  had  raged  in  it,  its 
sanctuary  had  been  desecrated  again  and  again,  its  little 
kingdom  torn  to  pieces,  its  free-born  children  carried  into 
captivity.  Through  tragedy  within  and  conquest  without, 
and  fire  and  convulsion,  it  had  still  continued,  renewing  its 
youth  like  the  eagle.  But  now  its  hour  had  come,  and  the 
use  for  which  it  had  been  preserved  was  accomplished.  The 
brief  and  awful  Passion  of  the  city  followed  the  Passion  of 
Him  whom  she  had  rejected  in  about  thirty-two  years.  And 
if  the  fiercest  stand  of  resistance  that,  perhaps,  ever  was  made, 
the  most  desperate  and  tragic  valour,  could  in  any  way  atone 
for  the  cruelty  and  falsehood  of  previous  history,  then  the 
Jews  in  that  last  act  of  their  national  history  might  be  par- 
tially forgiven — were  it  not  that  treachery  and  cruelty  still 
accompanied  them  in  the  heroism  of  that  terrible  struggle. 
Finally  the  fears  of  the  high  priests  were  realised  ;  the 
Romans  took  away  both  their  place  and  people  ;  and  for 
some  centuries  it  appeared  that  at  last  the  race,  the  sacred 
places,  the  memories  and  traditions  of  the  city  of  David,  and 
the  Mount  of  Zion,  had  been  stamped  out  for  ever.  So  had 
thought  the  Assyrians  five  hundred  years  before  ;  but  their 
captives  had  become  again  a  nation,  and  long  outlived  the 
race  that  carried  them  off  in  chains  and  weeping.  The 
destruction  made  by  the  Romans  was  still  more  com- 
plete. Again  one  stone  was  not  left  upon  another  in  that 
sacred  enclosure  so  jealously  guarded  and  defended  ;  again 
its  people,  so  many  as  remained,  were  driven  like  chaff  before 
the  wind  :  but  all  that  had  happened  before,  and  only  marked 
an  era  in  the  history.  Now,  however,  the  blow  was  final,  the 
annals  of  the  city  were  closed,  and  all  its  emblems  and  its 
types  fulfilled.  Everything  in  the  strange  and  impressive 
silence  which  now  fell  over  it,  marked  the  accomplishment 
of  this  unalterable   sentence.       An  awe  of  something  more 


CHAP.  Ill      THE  END  OF  THE  JEWISH  DISPENSATION  507 

terrible  than  ruin  enveloped  the  plateau  upon  the  little 
hill,  so  that  even  Rome  herself  withdrew  trembling  from  any 
attempt  to  disturb  its  ashes.  The  old  order  had  changed, 
giving  place  to  new.  History  and  hope  all  accomplished, 
all  misunderstood,  ceased  in  the  spot  which  had  been  pre- 
served by  their  means,  "  O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  thou 
that  killedst  the  prophets,  and  stonedst  them  which  were  sent 
unto  thee  !  If  thou  hadst  known,  even  thou,  at  least  in  this 
thy  day,  the  things  which  belong  to  thy  peace  !  "  But  that 
which  had  never  been,  and  so  seldom  is,  in  the  perverse 
history  of  man,  was  now  for  ever  impossible.  "  Ye  would 
not."  And  the  long  era  was  accomplished  and  all  ended  for 
which  Jerusalem  had  been  called  into  being — which  she  had 
conceived  as  for  her  own  advantage  solely,  and  which  at  last 
by  her  own  fierce  and  bloody  hands,  unwitting  what  they 
did,  had  been  carried  out,  to  the  accomplishment  of  her  own 
doom  and  terrible  fate. 


That  this  wonderful  city  should  have  risen  from  her 
ashes  again  in  the  name  of  Him  whom  she  crucified,  that 
Christian  blood  should  have  been  shed  in  floods  as  Hebrew 
blood  had  been  shed  before,  for  her  deliverance  ;  that  every 
fathom  of  her  soil  and  every  stone  should  be  hallowed  by 
the  name  which  she  scorned  and  rejected — yet  that  the  city 
should  remain  in  the  possession  of  the  wild  Ishmaelite,  the 
enthusiast  of  the  desert,  are  all  facts  so  strange  and  so 
unparalleled  that  we  can  but  feel  the  mystery  of  the  future 
which  is  involved  in  them  to  be  dimly  shadowing  underneath, 
as  the  mysteries  of  the  past  are  all  involved  in  the  wonderful 
tale.  When  the  traveller  comes  round  the  slope  of  Olivet 
and  sees  suddenly  before  his  eyes  lying  white  in  the  sun- 
shine the  holy  city  over  which  our  Lord  wept : — the  sacred 
hill  covered  with  shrines  in  which  His  name  is  not  named 
save  in  the  potent  inference  of  that  denial,  inscribed  around 
the  Dome  of  the  Mahommedan,  which  in  its  very  assertion 
that  there  is  no  Son  of  God  suggests  to  all  ignorant  yet 
intelligent  souls  that  He  must  exist  who  is  thus  so  defiantly 
and  solemnly  denied  : — with  the   closed    and   built-up   gate 


So8  THE  FINAL   TRAGEDY  part  iv 

below  through  which  those  who  thus  deny  Him  believe  that 
He  is  one  day  to  ride  triumphant  into  the  ancient  home  of 
His  name  :  the  mystery  and  wonder  and  hope  of  that  future 
comes  upon  the  gazing  pilgrim  in  a  silent  rapture  of  inde- 
scribable emotion.  For  a  thousand  years  and  more  the  hearts 
of  Hebrew  poets  and  prophets  so  swelled  and  rose  at  thought 
of  Him  who  was  to  come,  the  Son  of  David,  the  King  of 
Israel,  the  Prince  of  Peace — an  event  which  they  understood 
as  little  as  we  understand  any  Second  Coming.  And  my 
heart,  I  own,  acknowledges  a  fond  superstition  before  the 
closed  arches  of  that  Golden  Gate.  The  old,  old  trees  of 
Gethsemane  lie  beyond  in  the  valley,  the  little  brook  He 
crossed  so  often  still  gathers  a  little  rivulet  from  the  rains. 
Shall  He  one  day  come  again  and  enter  from  the  valley  of 
His  deep  humiliation  to  the  lofty  courts  of  His  Father's 
house  ?  Who  can  tell  ?  It  is  the  superstition  of  those  who 
have  written  upon  their  most  sacred  shrine  that  there  is  no 
Son  of  God,  it  is  not  ours  : — yet  the  heart  fills  and  the  eyes 
run  over  to  think — If  that  might  be  !  The  prophet  upon 
this  very  hill  may  have  stood  and  gazed  and  pondered  what 
manner  of  man  that  should  be  whom  he  himself  had  de- 
scribed so  minutely.  He  who  was  to  come  as  a  lamb  to  the 
slaughter,  the  rejected  and  despised  of  men. 


INDEX 


AniATHAR,  34,  35,  123 

Abigail,  38 

Abishai,  33,  41,  109 

Abner,  22,  42,  61,  62,  63 

Abraham,  432,  434,  435,  482 

Absalom,  son  of  David,  88  ;  personal 
beauty,  89 ;  his  sheep -shearing, 
90  ;  death  of  Amnon,  91  ;  flight, 
92  ;  takes  refuge  in  Geshur,  ibid. ; 
recalled  to  Jerusalem,  94  ;  restored 
to  favour,  95  ;  courts  populace,  96  ; 
raises  reliellion,  ibid.  ;  outrage  in 
Jerusalem,  102  ;  deserted  by 
Ahithophel,  103;  is  killed,  105 

Achish,  David's  first  visit  to,  29,  30, 
48  ;  indulgent  friendship,  51  ;  war 
with  Snul,  52  ;  calls  David  to 
follow  him,  ibid.  ;  compelled  to 
send  David  away,  ibid. 

Adonijah,  120,  121 

Ahaz,  King  of  Judah,  205,  221 

Ahimelech,  priest  of  Nob,  28,  34 

Ahithophel,  loi,  103,  117 

Amasa,  184,  109 

Amnon,  son  of  David,  88  ;  story  of 
Tamar,  89 ;  elder  brother  of 
Absalom,   90 ;    death  of  Amnon, 

91 

Amon,  King  of  Judah,  197 

Amos,  prophet,  206  ;  prophesies  cap- 
tivity, 207  ;  banished  from  Bethel, 
208  ;  addresses  the  people  as  a 
community,  210  ;  state  of  Hebrew 
society,  215  ;  clothes  laid  to 
pledge,  ibid.  ;  countrymen  sold 
into  bondage,  216  ;  his  prophecies 
delivered  in  time  of  national  pros- 
perity, 221  ;  a  herdsman  and  un- 
trained, 224 


Anathoth,   232,    250,    251,    262,    276, 

326 
Andrew,  4 1 1 

Apocryphal  books,  368,  382 
Ark:  at  Kirjath-Jearim,  28,  74;  brought 

to   Jerusalem,    77  ;    carried    with 

David  in  his  flight,  99  ;    sent  back 

by  him,  ibid. 
Artaxerxes,  usurper,  330 

Longimanus,  338,  349,  360 
Asahel,  61,  62 
Assyria,    sudden   rise,    173  ;    threatens 

lerusalem,    191   ;     destruction   of 

army,  194,  244,  253 

Bahyi.on,  prophecies  concerning,  233, 
236,  293,  296,  299,  306 ;  de- 
scriptive images  of  Chaldeans, 
299.    301  ;     conquest    by   Cyrus, 

319.  332 

Banias,  381,  383,  445 

Bartimceus,  461,  462 

Baruch,  266,  267,  342 

Barzillai,  chief  of  Gilead,  109 

Bathsheba,  86,  123 

Bethany,  450,  465,  471,  473.486 

Bethesda,  415 

Bethlehem,  town  of  Boaz  and  Ruth,  6  ; 
Samuel's  visit  to,  7  ;  David's  kin- 
dred leaves,  35  ;  water  from  well, 
79,  80  ;  Mary  and  Joseph  go  up 
'o»  393  ;  cave  of  the  Nativity, 
394 

Boaz,  6,  II,  12 

C^-SAR,  383,  481 

Captivity,  proclaimed  in  time  of  pros- 
perity, 209;    restored,   318,   320, 
I  322 


Sio 


INDEX 


Chaldeans,  299,  301 

Chebar,  295 

Conder,  Major,  504 

Cyrus,  prophecies  concerning,  103,  206; 
supposed  contemporary  prophet, 
24 1  ;  shows  favour  to  Jews,  319, 
320,  329,  330,  331 

Damascus,  48,  81,  206,  221,  222,  227, 
229,  445 

Daniel,  266,  318,  320 

Darius,  332,  336,  338,  369 

David — his  family,  6  ;  visit  of  Samuel 
to  house  of  Jesse,  7  ;  a  shepherd 
and  poet,  8  ;  anointed  by  Samuel, 
ibid.  ;  his  shepherd's  song,  9  ;  he 
considers  the  heavens,  10 ;  his 
lineage,  11-12  ;  plays  to  Saul,  12  ; 
.  goes  to  visit  the  army,  13  ;  sees 
Goliath,  ibid.  ;  and  kills  him,  15  ; 
songs  of  triumph,  16  ;  incurs  anger 
of  Saul,  ibid.  ;  beloved  by  Michal 
and  Jonathan,  17  ;  his  charm  of 
manner,  18;  Michal  lets  him 
down  from  window,  1 9  ;  he  flies  to 
Ramah,  20  ;  is  pursued  by  Saul's 
messengers,  ibid. ;  by  Saul  himself, 
ibid. ;  returns  to  Gil^eah,  21 ;  com- 
pact with  Jonathan,  22  ;  story  of 
the  feast,  defended  by  Jonathan, 
23  ;  song  of  sorrow,  26  ;  flight  to 
Nob,  27  ;  priest  gives  him  shew- 
bread,  28  ;  the  sword  of  Goliath, 
ibid.  ;  flies  to  Gath,  29  ;  is  ill  re- 
ceived, 30;  feigns  madness,  and  es- 
capes, ibid. ;  in  the  wilderness,  ibid. ; 
his  followers,  33;  three  "mighties," 
ibid.;  "broken  men,"  z3/r/.  ;  caves 
of  AduUam,  34 ;  delivers  Keilah 
from  Philistines,  35  ;  finds  them 
false,  36  ;  Saul  in  the  cave,  40  ; 
cuts  off  his  skirt,  ibid.  ;  appeals  to 
him,  ibid. ;  breaks  into  camp,  41  ; 
parley  with  Saul  and  Abner,  42  ; 
despair  of  David,  43  ;  psalms  of 
adversity,  45  ;  primitive  music, 
ibid. ;  David's  denunciation  of  his 
enemies,  47  ;  not  violent,  ibid.  ; 
never  shows  bitterness  to  Saul, 
ibid. ;  second  flight  to  Achish,  48  ; 
like  Scots  knights  flying  to  England, 
43  ;  well  received  by  Achish,  50  ; 
Ziklag  given  to  him,  ibid. ;  his 
raids  on  Achish's  allies,  ibid. ;  war 


of  Achish  with  Saul,  52  ;  dilemma 
of  David,  ibid.  ;  action  of  Philistine 
chiefs,  53  ;  David  sent  away,  ibid. ; 
finds  Ziklag  desolate,  54  ;  recovers 
captives  and  spoils,  55  ;  end  of  his 
career  as  outlaw,  56  ;  reception  of 
news  of  Saul's  death,  57  ;  elegy  on 
Saul  and  Jonathan,  58 ;  leaves 
Ziklag,  60 ;  settles  at  Hebron, 
ibid. ;  revyards  rnen  of  Jabesh- 
Gilead,  ibid. ;  battle  of  Joab  and 
Abner,  61  ;  seven  years  at  Hebron, 
64  ;  kingship  different  from  Saul's, 
ibid. ;  union  of  all  the  tribes,  67  ; 
Jerusalem  the  capital,  68  ;  position 
of  Moriah,  7 1  ;  proposes  to  bring 
up  the  Ark,  72  ;  David's  strong 
religious  faith,  73  ;  neglect  into 
which  Ark  had  fallen,  74  ;  brought 
up  from  house  of  Abinadab,  ibid.  ; 
accident  to  Uzzah,  75  ;  David 
"was  displeased,"  ibid.  %  Ark 
abandoned,  ibid. ;  again  taken  up, 
76 ;  David  dances  before  the  Lord, 
77  ;  Psalm,  "  Lift  up  your  heads," 
ibid.;  Michal's  anger,  77-78; 
struggle  with  Philistines,  79  ;  story 
of  well  of  Bethlehem,  79-80;  suc- 
cess and  victory,  81  ;  subdues  all 
enemies,  ibid.  ;  builds  palace,  82  ; 
desires  to  build  Temple,  ibid.  ; 
offering  refused,  83  ;  disappoint- 
ment of  David,  ibid. ;  David  with- 
draws from  war,  84 ;  unoccupied 
life  and  temptation,  88 ;  Bath- 
sheba,  85  ;  Death  of  Uriah,  86  ; 
Nathan's  parable,  87 ;  David's  re- 
pentance, 88  ;  death  of  his  child, 
ibid. ;  story  of  Amnon  and  Tamar, 
89  ;  death  of  Amnon,  91  ;  flight  of 
Absalom,  92 ;  the  wise  woman  and 
her  parable,  93  ;  Absalom's  recall, 
94;  Absalom  out  of  favour,  ibid.; 
Absalom  restored  to  favour,  95  ; 
rebellion  breaks  out,  96  ;  David's 
flight,  97  ;  and  incidents  of  flight, 
97-102  ;  cause  of  his  panic,  100  ; 
at  Mahanaim,  103  ;  David's  en- 
treaty to  captains,  "Deal  gently 
with  the  young  man,"  105  ;  waits 
for  news,  106  ;  wail  for  Absalom, 
ibid.;  Joab's  reproof,  ibid.;  tri- 
umphant return  to  Jerusalem,  109; 
sons  of  Rizpah,  112;  he  who  first 


INDEX 


511 


thought  of  Temple,  ibid. ;  his 
poetry,  113;  expressive  of  his 
life,  ibid.  ;  his  character,  114- 115; 
preparations  for  building  Temple, 
116;  never  recovered  death  of 
Absalom,  1 1 7  ;  songs  of  triumph, 
118;  choice  of  Solomon,  1 19; 
great  parliament,  ibid.  ;  shows 
them  all  his  stores,  121  ;  receives 
their  subscriptions,  ibid.  ;  falls  in- 
to calm  of  old  age,  122;  Adonijah's 
rebellion  rouses  David,  124;  orders 
Solomon  to  be  anointed,  ibid.  ; 
charges  Solomon  in  respect  to 
Joab,  Abiathar,  Shimei,  125;  utters 
last  song,  «/5/r/. ;  dies,  126;  David's 
Son  and  Lord,  484 
Deuteronomy,  book  of,  199 

Early  Scottish  history,  128 
Ebedmelech,  eunuch,  281,  282 
Egypt,  caravans  from,  48  ;  alliance  of 
Solomon  with,  138  ;  raid  on  Jeru- 
salem, 170;  Egyptian  party  in  Jeru- 
salem,   198,    243  ;    hieroglyphics, 
213  ;  other  occurrences,  274,  278, 
279,  299 
Eleazer,  son  of  Dodo,  15 
F^liab,  son  of  Jesse,  14,  23,  33 
Eliashib,  high  priest,  353,  354 
Elizabeth,  391,  393 
Esther,  347 

Ezekiel,  unlike  his  brethren,  291  ;  a 
seer,  293 ;  captive  in  Babylon, 
293,  295  ;  draws  Jerusalem  on 
tile,  296  ;  vision  of  idolatry  there, 
297  ;  lyric  of  the  sword,  299 ; 
images  of  the  Chaldeans,  300 ; 
death  of  his  wife,  301  ;  portent 
fulfilled,  302,  303  ;  prophesies  re- 
storation, 304,  305  ;  vision  of  dry 
bones,  307  ;  plan  of  new  Temple, 
309  ;  the  gate  for  the  Prince,  313; 
referred  to,  369 
Ezra,  special  mission,  340  ;  no  escort  on 
journey,  341  ;  prayer  in  Temple, 
343  ;  condemnation  of  heathen 
wives,  344 ;  reads  lx)ok  of  the 
law,  364 

Galilee,  a  Sunday  morning,  438  ;  ex- 
citement in,  441  ;  crowd  seeking 
miracles,  443 ;  departure  of  our 
Lord,  449 


General  Gordon,  505 
Geshem,  an  Arabian,  333 
Geshur,  92 
Gibeah,  16,  19,  21 
Gibeon,  130 
Gilead,  28 
Goliath,  13,  15,  28 

Haggai,  331,  335,  336 

Hananiah,  262 

Hebron,  60,  67 

Ilermon,  445 

Herod,  378,  379,  380,  382,  383,  485 

Hezekiah,  1 78  ;  restores  Temple,  1 79  ; 
addresses  Levites,  181  ;  Passover, 
184 ;  sends  posts  to  call  Israel, 
185;  strengthens  fortifications,  188; 
receives  Assyrian  envoy,  191  ; 
dismay  of  his  ministers,  192  ; 
spreads  out  letter  in  the  Temple, 
193  ;  destruction  of  Assyrian  army, 
194;  the  supposed  Pisistratus  of 
Judah,  195;  unwilling  to  die,  197; 
an  Augustan  age,  205  ;  prophets 
constantly  foretelling  misfortune, 
221 

Hilkiah,  high  priest,  197,  244 

Hushai,  10 1 

Isaiah,  his  prophecies  attributed  to  two 
or  more  writers,  204 ;  his  age  an  era 
of  prosperity,  209 ;  addresses  the 
nation  in  general,  210  ;  state  of 
Hebrew  society  revealed  by  him, 
21 5; usury, drunkenness,  216,  217; 
luxury,  polytheism,  218  ;  his 
vision  of  God,  221  ;  his  great  ex- 
perience, 222  ;  a  great  poet, 
223  ;  proclaims  Prince  of  Peace, 
ibid.  ;  in  later  days  counsellor  of 
king,  ibid. ;  extraordinary  symbol 
of  child's  birth,  227  ;  prophesies 
destruction  of  Israel  and  Syria, 
ibid. ;  song  of  the  vineyard,  228  ; 
rise  of  Assyria,  229  ;  proclaimed 
an  instrument  in  God's  hand,  231  ; 
its  overthrow  :  Hades  welcomes  its 
king,  233;  his  great  theme  the  Mes- 
siah, 237;  the  Man  of  Sorrows, 
239;  tradition  of  Isaiah's  death,  240 

Ishboshcth,  62,  63 

Jahesh-Gii.eai),  60 
Jacob,  14,  16 


512 


INDEX 


James  (and  John),  448 
Jehoiachin  or  Jeconiah,  272,  273,  294 
Jehoiakim,  254,  257,  268,  270,  272. 
Jeremiah,  a  priest,  son  of  high  priest, 
244  ;  called  to  be  prophet  against 
his  will,  245  ;  office  of  prophet  not 
popular,  246  ;  supposed  fraudulent 
writer  of  book  of  law,  248  ;  pro- 
phecies and  warnings,  249,  251  ; 
seized  by  priests,  256  ;  released  by 
rulers,  257  ;  the  potter's  vessel, 
258  ;  seized  by  Pashur  and  beaten, 
261-262  ;  put  in  the  stocks,  ibid.  ; 
cry  of  despair,  263  ;  writes  pro- 
phecies in  a  roll,  267  ;  roll  read 
in  Temple,  ibid. ;  princes  hear  it, 
268  ;  carry  it  to  king,  ibid.  ;  burnt 
by  king,  who  orders  arrest  of  pro- 
phet, 270;  Jeremiah  escapes,  271  ; 
by  Euplirates,  ibid.  ;  reappears, 
274 ;  appealed  to  by  Zedekiah, 
ibid.  ;  prophesies  the  return  from 
captivity  after  seventy  years,  275  ; 
writes  to  captives  in  Babylon,  ibid. ; 
in  prison,  277  ;  emancipation  of 
bondmen,  278  ;  repeal  of  enfran- 
chisement, 279  ;  denunciations 
from  dungeon,  ibid.  ;  confined 
in  court  of  Temple,  280  ;  in  the 
horrible  pit,  281  ;  delivered  by 
eunuch,  282  ;  doom  of  city,  283  ; 
writes  Lamentations,  285  ;  carried 
to  Egypt,  289  ;  prophesies  restora- 
tion, 290 
Jericho,  11,  12,461,  462,  463 
Jeroboam  II.,  205 

Jerusalem — Jebus,  3  ;  its  situation,  4  ; 
defended  by  blind  and  lame,  5  ; 
taken  by  David,  6 ;  choice  of 
Jebus  for  capital,  67  ;  negotiation 
with  rulers,  68  ;  command  of  army 
promised  as  reward  for  capture, 
ibid.  ;  won  by  Joab,  ibid.  ;  won- 
derful destiny,  69  ;  the  three  hills, 
70;  questions  about  Mount  Moriah, 
72  ;  David  strengthens  and  beauti- 
fies it,  73  ;  proposes  to  bring  up 
the  Ark,  ibid.  ;  Ark  brought  up  in 
triumph,  77,  78  ;  scenes  in  city  : 
Absalom's  sheep-shearing,  89,  90  ; 
popularity  of  Absalom — rebellion, 
95  ;  David's  flight,  97  ;  Absalom's 
entry,  102  ;  return  of  David,  109  ; 
anointing  of  Solomon,  124;  Temple 


on  Moriah  built,  137  ;  bridges  over 
valley,  140  ;  beautiful  city,  141  ; 
changes  in,  178,  179,  197,  199  ; 
Isaiah's  addresses  to  people,  246, 
251  ;  grotto  of  Jeremiah,  266  ; 
siege  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  272  ; 
Jehoiachin  carried  away  with 
10,000  of  the  people,  ibid.  ;  city 
again  defended,  275;  restoration 
of  slaves,  278;  again  enthralled, 
279;  destruction  of  city,  283; 
Ezekiel's  picture  on  tile,  296 ; 
plan  of  restored  city,  309;  golden 
gate,  313;  again  restored  by  Mac- 
cabees, 374-375;  city  of  ecclesi- 
astics and  theologians,  388 

Jesse,  6,  34 

Jesus  of  Nazareth,  born  in  Bethlehem, 
395  ;  first  visit  to  Temple,  398  ; 
childhood  at  Nazareth,  399,  400  ; 
beginning  of  work,  404  ;  marriage 
of  Cana,  405  ;  naturalness  of 
miracles,  407  ;  goes  up  to  Jeru- 
salem, 409  ;  followed  by  disciples, 
410  ;  his  first  comment  on  the 
Temple,  412  ;  lingers  in  Judea, 
ibid.;  the  woman  of  Samaria,  413; 
again  in  Jerusalem,  414  ;  healing 
of  the  impotent  man,  415  ;  begin- 
ning of  Sabbath  controversy,  416  ; 
fundamental  difference  of  teaching 
in  Jerusalem  and  Galilee,  417; 
immediate  statement  of  divine 
claims,  418  ;  great  excitement 
arises  in  Temple,  420 ;  also  in 
Galilee,  421  ;  goes  up  to  Jeru- 
salem at  the  feast  of  Tabernacles, 
ibid.  ;  the  people  ask.  Will  he 
come  ?  422,  423  ;  address  in  the 
Temple  ;  425  ;  Sanhedrim  officers 
ordered  to  arrest  him,  ibid.  ;  cere- 
monial pouring  out  of  water,  426  ; 
proclaims  the  water  of  life,  ibid.  ; 
officers  unal)le  to  arrest  him,  428  ; 
"Never  man  spake  like  this  man," 
429  ;  the  light  of  the  world,  430; 
strongly  rebukes  the  seed  of 
Abraham,  432;  "  Before  Abraham 
was,  I  am,"  436  ;  in  Galilee,  441; 
multitudes  seeking  miracles,  443  ; 
goes  to  border  of  Tyre  and  Sidon, 
444  ;  is  transfigured,  445  ;  Peter's 
confession,  ibid.  ;  Peter  reproves 
his  Master,  ibid.  ;  parables,   448  ; 


INDEX 


513 


parting  with  Galilean  disciples, 
449  ;  wanderings  in  Judea,  450; 
first  visit  to  Bethany,  451  ;  the 
man  who  was  born  blind,  ibid.; 
.  popular  excitement,  452  ;  Jesus  in 
the  Temple,  254  ;  his  utterances, 
blasphemy  or  truth,  455  ;  no  other 
alternative,  ibid.  ;  discourses  in 
Solomon's  porch,  457  ;  all  blas- 
phemies or  else  true,  ibid.  ;  leaves 
the  Jews  in  no  doubt,  ibid.  ;  re- 
turns to  the  country  beyond  Judea, 
458  ;  the  valley  of  Jordan,  460  ; 
the  ten  lepers,  461  ;  blind  Barti- 
maeus,  462-463  ;  the  sickness  of 
Lazarus,  464  ;  goes  to  a  city  called 
Ephraim,  465 ;  returns  for  the 
Passover,  470  ;  supper  at  Bethany, 
471  ;  Mary's  anointing  for  his 
burial,  473  ;  Judas,  474  ;  agita- 
tion of  priests  and  Sadducees, 
475  ;  entry  into  Jerusalem,  477- 
478 ;  drives  out  the  money- 
changers, 479;  concerted  endeavour 
to  entrap  him:  by  priests  and  scribes, 
480-481  ;  by  Sadducees,  482  ; 
by  Pharisees,  483  ;  full  revelation 
of  spiritual  kingdom,  484 ;  de- 
nunciation of  scribes  and  Phari- 
sees, 485  ;  conversation  concern- 
ing fall  of  Jerusalem,  489  ;  last 
day  in  the  Temple,  490  ;  the 
Upper  Chamber,  493 ;  incidents 
of  the  last  supper,  494-495  ;  in 
Gethsemane,  497  ;  seized  in  the 
garden,  498  ;  the  denial  of  Peter, 
499  ;  the  Via  Dolorosa,  503  ; 
Golgotha,  504 
Joab  joins  David,  61  ;  battle  with 
Abner,  62 ;  vengeance  on  Abner, 
63 ;  no  sympathy  from  David,  64 ; 
takes  Jerusalem,  68 ;  commission 
respecting  Uriah,  85 ;  message  to 
David,  86  ;  pleads  for  Absalom, 
93 ;  leads  army  against  Absalom, 
104;  upbraids  David  on  death  of 
Absalom,  106;  in  disgrace,  109; 
siege  of  Tekoah,  1 1 1  ;  supports 
Adonijah,  122  ;  guilty  of  death  of 
Abner,  Absalom,  Amasa — David's 
sentence,  125 
John  the  Baptist,  458,  460 
John,  evangelist,  432,  448,  494 
Jonathan  loves  David,  14;  his  father's 


confidence  in  him,  18 ;  warns 
David,  19;  is  consulted  by  David, 
22 ;  with  Saul  at  feast,  23 ;  his 
compact  with  David,  25;  last  in- 
terview, 35 ;  David  never  unfaith- 
ful to,  112 

Josiah,  the  last  great  king  of  Judah, 
198;  finds  book  of  the  law,  197; 
fate  of  his  sons,  199;  struggle 
against  evil,  243 ;  faithful  to  As- 
syria, 253;  killed  at  Megiddo, 
ibid. 

Judah,  people  and  kingdom  of,  6,  23, 
30,  31,  36,  60,  67,  71,  73,  167, 
169,  171,  173,  184,  187,  197.238, 
262,  265,  297,  299,  303,  317,  329 

Judas  Iscariot,  473,  491,  493 

Keilah,  36 
Kirjath-Jearim,  28,  74 

Lazarus,  451,  464,  465,  471 

Maccabees,  Matthias,  371,  372,  373  ; 
Judas,  378  ;  Simon,  377  ;  Jona- 
than, 379  ;  John  Hyrcanus,  ibid.  : 
Hyrcanus,  379,  380 

Manasseh,  King  of  Judah,  197,  242, 
281,  282 

Martha,  450,  473,  486 

Mary,  a  maiden  of  Nazareth,  388 ; 
angel's  greeting,  391  ;  goes  to  visit 
Elizabeth,  ibid. ;  birth  of  our  Lord, 
394;  oflering  of  doves  in  the  Temple, 
395  ;  goes  up  to  feast,  398  ;  re- 
turns to  seek  her  son,  399  ;  ponders 
these  things  in  her  heart,  400 ; 
resident  in  Nazareth,  405  ;  at 
marriage  feast,  406  ;  goes  up  to 
Jerusalem,  408 

Mary  of  Bethany,  451,  473,  49 1 

Mephibosheth,  loi,  iio,  1 12 

Messiah,  393,  400,  434,  441 

Micah,  208,  227 

Michal,  14,  19,  77,  78 

Miracles,  407 

Moabite  stone,  271 

Nabai.,  34,  37,  3 
Nahum,  103 

Nathan,  82,  83,  87,  97,  123 
Nazareth,  388,  395,  405,  445 
L 


514 


INDEX 


Nebuchadnezzar,   262,   266,  267/272, 

273,  274,  276,  279,  294 
Nicodemus,  411,  425 
Nob,  27,  28 
Nethinims,  355 

Obadiah,  103,  235 

Parables,  Little  Child,  446 ;  Good 
Samaritan,  447  ;  Prodigal  Son, 
ibid;  Pharisee  and  Publican,  459 

Pashur,  son  of  Immur,  261,  262,  263, 
264 

Peter  accompanies  our  Lord,  411  ; 
confession  of  the  Christ,  445  ;  re- 
bukes his  Lord,  ibid;  asks  who  is 
the  betrayer  ?  479  ;  accompanies 
our  Lord  to  Gethsemane,  497  ; 
denial,  499 

Pharisees,  discussions  with  our  Lord, 
433,  434.  435  ;  in  Galilee,  441  ; 
concerned  with  miracle  of  blind 
man,  453  ;  in  the  country,  457  ; 
parable,  Pharisee  and  Publican, 
458,  459;  semi-patriotic,  471; 
their  faith  in  the  law,  475  ;  ques- 
tion. Which  is  First  Command- 
ment? 483  ;  their  blindness,  485  ; 
woe  to,  ibid;  no  delusion  left  to, 
490  ;  their  action,  491 

Queen  of  Sheba,  145 
Queen  iVIary  of  Scotland,  161 

Rabshakeh,  191,  192 

Rahab,  4,  12 

Ramah,  7,  19,  20,  21 

Rehoboam,  Kingofjudah,  a  disappoint- 
ment to  his  father,  151  ;  probably 
only  son,  152  ;  kingdom  broken 
up,  165;  raid  of  Egyptians,  170 

Ruth,  11,  12 

Sabbath,  416,  417 

Sadducees  in  Galilee,  441  ;  their  doc- 
trines, 475,  482 

Sanballat  the  Horonite,  353,  355 

Sanhedrim,  422,  423,  425,  428,  486, 
500 

Samaritans,  adversaries  of  Judah,  329  ; 
Samaritan  wives  of  Jews  put  away, 
345  ;  enmity,  353,  387 

Samaria,  woman  of,  413,  414 

Samuel,  his  visit  to  Jesse  at  Bethlehem, 


7 ;  selects  and  anoints  David,  8  ; 
receives  David  at  Ramah,  19 

Saul,  his  troubled  mood,  12  ;  his  love 
for  David,  ibid.  ;  anger  at  David's 
triumph,  16;  his  career  full  of  mis- 
takes, 18  ;  determines  to  destroy 
'Q2iV\A,ibid.;  prophesies  at  Ramah, 
21  ;  feast  of  the  new  moon,  23  ; 
continual  persecution  of  David,  35  ; 
enters  cave,  39  ;  skirt  of  his  robe 
cut  off,  40  ;  interview  with  David, 
ibid.;  night  surprise  in  camp,  41  ; 
his  spear,  42,  43  ;  limited  power, 
44  ;  battle  with  Philistines,  57  ; 
death,  ibid.  ;  elegy,  58 

Sennacherib,  188,  1 91,  234 

Sheba,  son  of  Bichri,  1 10 

Shimei,  loi,  109,  125 

Siloam,  451 

Socrates,  205 

Solomon  chosen  to  build  the  Temple, 
119  ;  promise  of  peace  in  his  day, 
121  ;  Joab  and  Abiathar  opposed 
to,  122,  223  ;  anointed  king,  124; 
his  father's  charge,  125  ;  tradi- 
tionary character,  127  ;  poetry, 
128;  man  of  peace,  129;  worship 
and  vision  at  Gibeon,  130;  his 
wisdom,  132  ;  wonderful  works, 
ibid. ;  Temple  founded  on  Moriah, 
137  ;  bridges  built,  140  ;  promotes 
trade,  141,  142,  143;  the  Corvee, 
forced  labour,  ibid.  ;  Lebanon, 
working  parties,  144  ;  ships,  145  ; 
receives  Queen  of  Sheba,  ibid.  ; 
widespread  fame,  147  ;  Song  of 
songs,  148;  Ecclesiastes,  150; 
disappointment,  15 1  ;  consolation, 
156  ;  unworthy  son,  152  ;  errors 
of  later  years,  1 60 ;  vanity  of 
vanities,  162  ;  the  portion  of  man, 
the  gift  of  God,  163 

Songs  of  Degrees,  382 

Tabernacles  (Feast  of),  327,  421 

Tabor  (Mount),  445 

Tatnai,  Satrap  of  Syria,  332,  333 

Temple,  first  conception  by  David,  82  ; 
David  forbidden  to  build  it,  83  ; 
preparations  for  building,  116; 
House  of  God,  120;  large  contri- 
butions made,  ibid.  ;  Solomon's 
Temple  immortal,  147  ;  failure  in 
immediate  object,    165  ;  repeated 


INDEX 


S»5 


desecration  and  destruction,  178, 
I97>  199 ;  repeated  restorations, 
'73>  I79>  198;  finally  destroyed 
by  Assyrians,  199  ;  vision  of  idol- 
atry in,  297  ;  rebuilding  begun, 
328;  arrested,  331;  inferior  to 
old  Temple,  336;  or  superior? 
ibid. ;  again  desecrated  by  Anti- 
ochus,  374 ;  restored  by  Judas 
Maccal>eus,  376  ;  fortified  and 
decorated  by  Herod,  379,  380 ; 
our  Lord  goes  up  to  the  feast  in 
youth,  396 ;  Passover,  409 ;  temple 
of  His  body,  411  ;  discussions  in 
the  Temple,  433  :  feast  of  dedica- 
tion, 453  ;  our  Lord's  discourse — 
Good  Shepherd,  454  ;  character  of 
discourses  there,  idiJ. ;  drives  out 
merchants,  479  ;  statement  of  His 
divinity,  480 ;  discussions  with 
Pharisees  and  Sadducees,  481, 
482  ;  our  Lord's  last  day  there,  490 


Tobiah,  333,  335 
Tophet,  259 
Transfiguration,  445 
Tyre,  48,  82,  132,  135,  145 

Uriah,  85,  86 
Urijah,  262 

Uzziah,  King  of  Judah,  188,  206,  208, 
209 

Zaccheus,  463 

Zedekiah,  last  king  of  Judah,  273,  274, 
277,  278,  279,  281,  282,  284, 
299 

Zerubbabel,  return  from  captivity,  321  ; 
Feast  of  Tabernacles  held  among 
ruins,  327  ;  Temple  begun,  328  ; 
Temple  consecrated,  336  ;  Pass- 
over, idiJ. 

Zeruiah,  sister  of  David,  33 

Ziba,  servant  of  Mephibosheth,  10 1,  1 10 

Ziklag,  so,  54,  55,  60 


THE    END 


PrinUdbf   K.  &  R.  Clark,  Edinburgh. 


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